


The Master Speed

by BabylonRanger



Category: Babylon 5, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Gen, Implied/Referenced Torture, Post-Episode AU: s04e08-09 Silence in the Library/Forest of the Dead, Pre-Episode: s02e08 A Race Through Dark Places, Psi Corps, Psi Corps should be its own warning, Referenced Non-Consensual Drug Use, Tags May Change
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-26
Updated: 2018-02-06
Packaged: 2019-02-22 05:45:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 21,751
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13160520
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BabylonRanger/pseuds/BabylonRanger
Summary: A strange pin-striped intruder puts the station personnel of Babylon 5 at unease, and that's before PsiCorps arrives with a mysterious telepath to investigate.Originally posted on Teaspoon and An Open Mind.





	1. Chapter One

**Author's Note:**

> Hopefully, this is still readable for anyone who hasn't watched Babylon 5. The title comes from the Robert Frost poem of the same name. Please enjoy!

_No speed of wind or water rushing by_

_But you have speed far greater._

 

Security Chief Michael Garibaldi turned from the view-screen he had been watching to see his new commanding officer walk into his office. Garibaldi held back a wince. He had promised to give Captain John Sheridan a chance; he did owe the man his life, after-all, but he couldn’t help but miss his former Commanding Officer. Jeffrey Sinclair was his friend, the reason he had this job, the reason he had been able turn his life back around after the living drunken hell Michael had slipped into during his assignment to Europa. For a moment, he indulged in wondering how Jeff was settling in as the new Earth Ambassador to Minbar before bringing his attention back to the present. “So, what’d the Senator have to say?” he asked Sheridan, who had walked over the view-screen.

“Just that we’re to keep this guy here and that someone had been sent to pick him up,” Sheridan said staring at the man on the view-screen. Garibaldi’s eyebrows rose. Spaceflights from Earth to Babylon 5 weren’t cheap, and as much as an intruder was a security risk, they generally didn’t warrant special transfer back to Earth. “What’s he doing, talking?” the Captain asked, watching the prisoner’s mouth moving.

“Singing, actually. That’s why I had the sound turned down. He started on some old show and movie tunes, then he moved on to some fairly obscure bands. But then he started singing songs that weren’t from Earth. I ran them through the database; no record of those songs anywhere.”

“Maybe he wrote them himself,” Sheridan suggested. Garibaldi leaned back in his chair.

“It’s not just the songs I can’t find, it’s the languages he’s singing them in. And none of those languages sounded like something you would just make up for a song,” he said. Sheridan nodded slowly.

“Have you found out how he got onboard yet, Mr. Garibaldi?” Sheridan asked.

“I’ve checked with all the Security and the Maintenance Bots outside the station. They’ve all reported in; none of them are missing and none of them have found breaches in the hull, C&C has confirmed that. I’ve asked him how he got here, but he keeps insisting that he just parked his ship. Of course, when I ask him where he ‘parked’ it, what it looks like, and how come Command and Control has no record of it, he just grins at me. He didn’t seem all that intimidated when I threatened him either. I was just considering asking Ms. Winters to help get some information out of him.” Sheridan opened his mouth to speak but was interrupted by a beep from his hand. The Captain sighed and pressed his communication badge on his hand as Garibaldi smirked.

“Sheridan,” the Captain barked into the badge.

“Captain, you asked me to remind you about treaty negotiations between the Narn Regime and the Centauri Republic that will start in an hour?” a woman’s voice replied from the badge. Sheridan closed his eyes and winced.

“Thank you, Commander Ivanova. I’ll be in my office preparing.”

“I’m sure you will be Captain,” Ivanova said. “I’d say break a leg, but, well.” Sheridan chuckled. Susan Ivanova had injured her own foot not long ago trying to negotiate peace between two fighting factions of Drazi. Her dry wit had not been affected. “C&C out.” The Captain turned off his comm badge and turned back to Michael.

“Good luck with Londo and G’Kar,” Michael said, grinning like a shark. The Narn and Centauri did not get along, to put it mildly. Londo Mollari, the Centauri Ambassador and G’Kar, the Narn Ambassador especially hated each other’s guts. The Narn despised their former enslavers, and the Centauri detested their former slaves and blamed the Narn for beginning the slow fall of the “Great Centauri Republic.”

“Thanks,” Sheridan grumbled. He turned to leave but stopped, noticing something on his Security Chief’s desk. “What’s this?” he asked, picking up a long, brown coat. It looked like it would fit a tall, thin man.

“The intruder was wearing it,” Garibaldi explained. “We scanned him for weapons and turned up nothing, but better to be safe than sorry.” Sheridan hummed in understanding and agreement, set the coat back down, and left. Michael, left alone again, turned back to the view-screen. The intruder had moved from his seat at the interrogation table over to the camera. The tall man rapped it a couple times with his knuckles. Sighing in annoyance, Garibaldi turned the sound back up.

“Hello? Anyone there?” the man asked. “’Cause if you are, I don’t suppose you could send someone down with some food? Not that I mean to complain or anything; the service has been quite decent and polite so far, and I have been in worse prisons, but if I’m going to be kept in here much longer some tea or jam wouldn’t go amiss. And some banan- oh no. Wait, you lot probably wouldn’t have bananas all the way out here, would you?” The intruder backed away from the camera, rubbed the back of his neck and muttered “Where ever ‘here’ is.” Garibaldi frowned at the man on the view-screen. “Oh, alright, strike off the bananas, but that tea had better be good!”

Feeling his annoyance increasing, Garibaldi turned down the sound and left his office to head to head for the transport tubes. With any luck, he would be able to find Talia Winters quickly. The tube doors opened and he stepped inside. “This is gonna be a long day,” he sighed.

******

A man dressed all in black strode confidently down the grey halls. Though he was small in stature and bore a pleasant expression on his face, he gave off an aura of cold intimidation. He stopped at a seemingly non-descript door and opened it. Gloved hands clasped behind his back, he entered the dark room. His mind reached out to the room’s occupant and almost immediately ran against the brick wall of a well-defended mind. “What have I said about going in my mind, eh?” The man blinked as light flooded the room. The speaker sat cross-legged on her bed, back straight and eyes closed.

“Talking is incredibly inefficient,” the man said. “Most here find it better to talk directly mind-to-mind. Why do you persist in demanding no one do so with you?” The woman snorted and opened her gold-tinted hazel eyes.

“Besides the fact that there’s such a thing as privacy and that allowing someone into your head is more than a bit intimate?” she asked. “Humans evolved with mouths and vocal chords for a reason, Bester. So long as I have them, I intend to put them to use.” She frowned at Bester. “Now, s’there a reason you interrupted my meditation, or are you just bein’ a Class-A prick again?”

“I’m hurt,” Bester tutted. “And here I was going to offer you the opportunity to leave this facility for a little field-trip. I know it’s been quite a while since you’ve been allowed outside, Ms. Bleddyn.” The woman snorted again. Quite a while was putting it mildly, relatively speaking. It had been well over a year since she had “been allowed outside.”

“Much as I dislike you, Bester, you are one of the best PsiCops the Corps has. You have the pick of the crop, as far as partners are concerned. Why me?” she asked, eying him cautiously.

“Because even though you haven’t yet come to accept the Corps as your family, we feel that this assignment would fit your personality and qualifications quite well,” he said.

“And if I get killed, your butchers can hack into me without worryin’ ‘bout me tearin’ their minds loose from their moorin’s, right?” she said dryly.

“I’m glad we understand each other,” Bester said, smiling with only his mouth. The woman rolled her eyes and got to her feet. She rolled her shoulders and stretched.

“Right, where’re we goin’ then, and why?” she asked.

“We’ve received word of an anomaly and a possible blip,” he answered watching the woman carefully. She stiffened for a second at the word blip, the PsiCorps’ informal word for a rogue telepath, but relaxed almost as soon as Bester had noticed it. She kept her expression one of bored disinterest. “As for the place: Babylon 5.”


	2. Chapter Two

_You can climb back up a stream of radiance to the sky,_

_And back through history up the stream of time._

 Talia Winters froze as the transport tube doors opened and revealed Garibaldi standing near the back. A wave of annoyance and trepidation rose within her, clashing with the headache she'd had since last night. Realistically, she knew that it had to be coincidence, the way he kept showing up in the same transport tube as her. But it still creeped her out; and she couldn’t help but wonder at times. “Oh good,” he said, “I was looking for you; was wondering if you could do me a favor, actually.” Talia sighed as she entered the tube.

“No, I’m not going to go on a date with you,” she said before informing the computer of her destination.

“That wasn’t the favor I was talking about,” Michael told her. “Though, if you ever change your mind —.”

“What did you want, Mr. Garibaldi?” she asked, wishing the tube would go faster. Just because she could block out the thoughts of those around her didn’t mean strong feelings couldn’t occasionally break through. And Garibaldi’s feelings around her always did seem a bit . . . strong.

“We found this intruder several hours ago. No records of him going through customs, hell, no records of him in any database, and we still don’t have any idea of how he got onboard. And whenever we ask him he just deflects the question.”

“What does this have to do with me?” Talia asked, wary of where this was going.

“I was thinking that maybe you could help us get something out him: who he really is, why he’s here, how he got here, and where the ship that brought him here is now.” Talia frowned.

“The PsiCorps has rules —,” she started to say. Garibaldi interrupted her.

“He’s been officially charged, and apparently someone back home thinks he’s important enough to warrant transport to Earth. I’m not asking for the kind of scan you’d do for someone about to get a personality wipe, Talia. Just the kind of scans you would do for business negotiations,” he said. Talia looked at him, thinking. She could get into serious trouble if she performed a scan without proper legal justification. But if the man was already charged . . .

“If I do this, and I’m not saying that I will, whatever I find, if I do find anything, won’t be admissible in court,” Talia reminded him.

“We already know he’s here illegally,” Garibaldi said. “If we can find his ship my people would be able to get or track down the rest of the picture.” The transport tube stopped and the doors opened at Talia’s destination. She left the tube slowly and turned back to him.

“I need to think about this a little more,” she explained. “And I need confirmation that any scan I perform on this man has legal basis. Give me that, and I’ll get back to you.” With that, she walked away, vehemently wishing she had taken the stairs.

* * * * * *

 “No tea?” If Garibaldi had been in a better mood, he might have found the prisoner’s crestfallen expression amusing. As it was, the man’s expectation of food only darkened Michael Garibaldi’s already black mood.

“I ran the name you gave me through the databases,” Garibaldi told the man, who had at some point returned to his seat. “None of the John Smiths in the system matched your description. So, wanna try me again?” The tall, brown-haired man raised an eyebrow at him.

“Are you always this direct? Some people reveal more about themselves through small-talk because they’re made to feel more comfortable. Or if they just have a really big gob like me and just cannot. Stop. Talking. Weeell, maybe not exactly like me. Mostly tend to keep things close to the chest this time around. Well, most times around, really. Sorry, what did you ask again?” Garibaldi glared at the intruder. He was barely holding back the urge to strangle this cause of his frustration and was honestly starting to look forward to when this man would be out of his already thin hair.

“What is your name?” he asked, leaning over the table. The other man leaned back a bit, put his hands behind his head, and relaxed in his chair, looking just shy of propping his feet on the table.

“Look, first time you asked me my name, I told you, ‘I’m the Doctor.’ You asked ‘Doctor what?’ — and may I just say, it’s been a while since I’ve heard that variation, so thank you for that — so I thought, ‘maybe, just this once, I should just go along with it and give a name to go with’ so I gave the one I’ve used most often: John Smith. I’ve also gone by James McCrimmon once or twice.” The man smiled wistfully. “I’d like to think Jamie’d be honored if he knew but that’s neither here nor there.” Garibaldi stared at the prisoner.

“So, what you’re telling me is that I ran an hours-long search, spending time and resources that could have gone to other duties I have, all for nothing because you have no name?” he said, not sure whether to be angry or incredulous.

“Oi, I do have a name; it’s the one I chose: the Doctor,” the man in front of him said indignantly.

“The Doctor,” Garibaldi repeated; his face blank.

“Yes, I chose it, I answer to it, it’s my name.”

“It’s a title,” Garibaldi said flatly. The man in front of him rolled his eyes and rubbed his face in his hands.

“See, this is why I gave you the name John Smith,” he complained, “Thought it would let me avoid this conversation. Do you know how many people have —?”

“I don’t care,” Garibaldi interrupted, “how often you’ve had that conversation. The fact of the matter is that you’re nowhere to be found in any database. You have no reason to be on this station.”

“Good! So glad we agree,” the intruder interjected with a grin. “Now, if you’ll let me get back to my ship,” he said, rising out of his chair. Garibaldi got up as well.

“Sit down,” he barked. The prisoner looked at Garibaldi with raised eyebrows, his grin gone in an instant. “I didn’t say you could leave,” Garibaldi said. The man stared at the Security Chief, blinked once, then shrugged and returned to his seat. Garibaldi began to circle the table.

“I did tell you before that this was an accident, a misunderstanding,” the man said. “I really and truly did not mean to land in what I’m sure is a very nice . . . space station. But I do need to check and see how my ship is doing and I need to get back to my friend’s house before she notices I’ve gone.”

“I think it’s safe to assume whatever friend you have has noticed you’re missing by now,” Garibaldi said dryly. “It does take a while to reach Babylon 5. Presuming you came from Earth it would have taken you a little more than a week to get here.”

“That’s a fairly large presumption to make though, isn’t it? That I come from Earth?” the man said, scrunching up his face in a frown. “I mean, yes, Earth was the last planet I was on but I’m not originally from there.”

“So you’re from one of the colonies?” Garibaldi asked, wondering whether his intruder’s lack of identification meant that he should recheck with colonial databases or with Earth-based mental hospitals.

“Nope” the man in the brown suit said, popping the ‘p’ with a grin. “See, the other thing you’ve been assuming is that I’m human.”

 * * * * * *

Bester frowned at the report on his view-screen. It looked as though PsiCorps was requesting (and by requesting, they meant demanding) that he stay on Mars to deal with a small lead with the telepath underground railroad (and by small lead they probably meant major breakthrough). While the information excited him, the request meant that he would have to find another PsiCop to deal with the blip report on Babylon 5 and with the mysterious Mallory Bleddyn. He reflected silently on the strange woman while he scrolled through the list of available PsiCops.

Ms. Bleddyn had just appeared in PsiCorps Headquarters one day a few years ago. No one had seen or sensed her enter. She simply wasn’t there one moment and then was the next. She had been apprehended immediately afterward and it was possible that she would have been killed or at least mind-wiped if she wasn’t a telepath. But she was a telepath unlike anything the Corps had ever seen before. Experiments that tried to replicate her power had only resulted in one dead researcher, a few rogue telepaths, one dead PsiCop, and a major headache for Bester. He grimaced, remembering the Ironheart fiasco. Kelsey had been a good partner, if a tad overconfident in thinking she could take down Ironheart by herself.

Ever since Ironheart’s escape one year ago, Mallory Bleddyn had been given a weekly dose of sleepers to make sure she would not escape the same way. But while the drugs inhibited most of her abilities, her mental shields remained too strong for a single PsiCop to breach. Efforts to teach her to accept the Corps as her family hadn’t gone very far either. Bester was half-way convinced that Ms. Bleddyn would be put in storage one of these days if she didn’t come around soon.

He paused, finding a name on the list. He wrote up a hurried message and sent it to the PsiCop, hoping for a quick reply. In answer to his wish, a message flashed up on his screen. She was a little put out by the short notice, but was willing to take his place with the Babylon 5 situation so long as it was understood that he owed her for dealing with both Ms. Bleddyn and the intractable crew of the space station. He wrote a hasty response, assuring her that he would pay her back at some future point and letting her know to be ready to leave immediately.

* * * * * *

 Judith Leui boarded the transport, immediately spotting her charge near one of the few windows built into the ship. The PsiCop looked disapprovingly at the strange woman’s black clothes. Judith had earned her PsiCop uniform through years of training at the PsiCorps Academy, while Ms. Bleddyn had done nothing besides show up with a psi-rating beyond P12. She stood behind the blonde and continued to watch her. Finally, Mallory Bleddyn turned her gaze to the auburn-haired woman past her left shoulder.

“Didn’t know I’d missed the sky this much,” she said quietly. She took in the PsiCop’s strained expression and glanced down at her clothes. “Bester’s idea,” she said, explaining, “suggested it’d be a good idea if we presented a ‘unified front’.” Mallory snorted. “Don’t know who he’s trying to kid.” Judith’s lips tightened.

“Well, it will fool no one if you insist on carrying on with this attitude,” she told Mallory. “For the next few days we will be traveling to the station. I will go over proper procedure with you and I expect you to pay attention. When we arrive at the station I will take point and will do most of the talking. You are to approach no one, speak only when spoken to, and do exactly what I say when I say it. Are we clear?” Mallory smirked for a second before nodding solemnly. “Good.” Judith paused, having thought of something else. “When will this dose of sleepers wear off?” She was perversely pleased by the stricken expression that crossed the younger woman’s face for a moment before it vanished.

“Sometime after we reach Babylon 5,” Mallory said softly, folding her arms over her chest. Her hazel eyes drifted towards the Martian sky and she swallowed shakily. “You gonna give me another shot when we get there, then?” The red-headed PsiCop gave her a deliberating look, taking in the mysterious woman’s haunted eyes and trembling limbs.

“I’ll be giving it some consideration,” she said. “However, there will be the slim chance that I will need your assistance. Also, keep in mind that the Corps will take your conduct during this mission into account when we return to Mars. A well-behaved performance on your part and a satisfactory report on mine and you may find that the use of inhibiting drugs on you will be discontinued.”

“Pardon me, ma’ams, but we’ll be taking off shortly. If you could take a seat or enter your cabin before we break atmo it would be greatly appreciated,” one of the crew said before passing them. Judith nodded shortly at the man, and then turned back to her charge.

“We’re in cabin 6,” she said, expecting Mallory to turn around and follow her.

“Would it be alright if I stayed here a little while longer?” the younger woman asked instead. “It’s just that I haven’t seen sky for so long. Or stars.” Her voice trailed off. Judith resisted frowning at her, barely. She didn’t want to indulge every request Mallory made of her. She was a PsiCop, not an Instructor or a mentor and she was not here to coddle the woman. Still, Judith had to admit that it would make Mallory more likely to obey if she was given rewards now and then.

“We’re scheduled to break atmosphere in five minutes. Be at the cabin in four,” Judith told her firmly before walking away. She did not see Mallory place a gloved hand on the window, or the tear that ran down her face.

“So,” she said softly, still staring at the sky, “it’s living death or death of morals. Same choice they gave last year an’ the year before that. What would you choose?” She sniffed and leaned her forehead against the window, closing her eyes as she did. “Oh, right. You chose living death for both of us.” The transport began to shake as the engines fired up. “Diff’rent ground, diff’rent sky . . . but s’not the same with just one.” Mallory sighed, then stepped back from the window and wiped her face. “Right, cryin’ and whingin’s not gonna solve anythin’. Let’s just see if I can’t find a third option.” With a final look at the sky that was quickly clearing into stars, Mallory walked away from the window.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh Talia. Once would be a coincidence. Twice would be suspicious. Three or more times while lampshading it is a gag.
> 
> Judith Leui actually is a PsiCop from the show. Unfortunately, I couldn't find out if she was ever named. So I've twisted the name of the actor who played her in season two's "A Race Through Dark Places" and season three's "Dust to Dust" - Judy Levitt - because I forgot when I first started that Bester and Sheridan never met until "Race".


	3. Chapter Three

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sooo, this was written before the 50th Anniversary and I stopped watching Doctor Who that Christmas. If it wasn't already evident, I'm taking a hard divergence from canon here.

_And you were given this swiftness, not for haste,_

_Nor chiefly that you may go where you will,_

The Doctor bit the inside of his cheek and waited patiently (or maybe not so patiently — he had never really been big on patience unless he waiting for a plan to work and even then he usually didn’t have to wait very long and he usually had some way of distracting himself until it worked and why was he sitting here again? Oh, right, he was waiting) for the human doctor to come to the interrogation room, wave whatever medical device was in fashion this decade in this universe, and declare him Not-Human so he could get back to the business of fixing his TARDIS and getting back to his home universe and back to Donna before she, Lee, or Jenny noticed he was missing and thought he had abandoned them with Donna’s mum. At least, he hoped that was what would happen.

It was quite possible that one of his companions had already noticed he and his ship had disappeared (he certainly wouldn’t put it past Donna these days to discover he was gone and try to hunt him down, and Jenny had a tendency to check up on him every few minutes since they’d saved her from the Library just to make sure he was still there — he couldn’t find much fault in her for that when he was guilty of doing the same with her). It was also possible that the Station’s security would refuse to let him go. After all, he was an unknown entity, and just because he’d managed to ascertain that yes, Official First Contact for humans had happened at this point and yes, this Station seemed to hold both humans and aliens didn’t mean that they wouldn’t keep him locked up.

Because no matter how unintentional his landing had been (and he still hadn’t figured out how he and the TARDIS had managed to poke through the walls of _another_ parallel universe — he immediately stifled all thoughts that could lead to _that_ hearts-stoppingly painful place) the fact of the matter was that he had trespassed. Although, considering breaking-and-entering was something he did fairly regularly, he couldn’t really bring himself to care. Besides, he was fairly confident that even if they did lock him up he would be able to escape without too much difficulty.

The main problem would be getting his coat and sonic back. He wasn’t quite sure where they had put them, and while he could just make a replacement screwdriver, he didn’t want to leave this one in the hands of 23rd century humans, and he _really_ didn’t want to leave his coat behind. He liked that coat, it completed his outfit nicely and it had been a gift from Janis Joplin and Rose had — No, no, no, no, no don’t go there, just stop and think of something else.

The Doctor settled his gaze on the brooding Chief of Security who was standing by the door, well, leaning back against the wall next to the door, really. He wondered if the balding man was perpetually irritable or if he had just been giving the man a very tough day. He wouldn’t be surprised if it was the latter. He could be very irritating, everyone said so, including his other selves whenever they would meet up (which, admittedly wasn’t often these days, which was probably a good thing for numerous reasons). He put off his ponderings when the door chimed. “Come in,” the man by the door said.

The door whooshed open and a tired looking, black man entered the room. “Well, Garibaldi, are you going to tell me why I had to come here instead of you coming to me?” the man asked, looking cautiously from his co-worker to the Doctor who was still sitting in his chair.

“Sorry, Doc,” Garibaldi said as the door closed. “Thought we should probably keep this quiet for now just in case . . . .” He glanced at the Doctor who was looking at him, amusement shining in his eyes.

“In case I was lying about being an alien or in case I was telling the truth?” the Doctor asked, holding back a grin. The human doctor snorted quietly.

“Well, your outward appearance is human but that doesn’t mean anything,” he said, pulling a handheld scanner out of his pocket. “The Centauri look human for the most part as well, though you’ll forgive me if I say you don’t look like a Centauri.”

“That would be because I’m not that either,” the Doctor said with a wry smile, watching the human wave the scanner over him.

“I’m picking up two functional hearts, something strange with your pulmonary system . . . .” _Probably my respiratory bypass_ , the Doctor thought as the human went on listing his organic differences. “And your DNA . . . .” Here, the human broke off with a frown. “I’ve never seen anything like that. Is that —?”

“Triple-stranded, not double-stranded,” the Doctor interrupted. “It’s not called DNA but it does pretty much the same job as yours.”

“That’s amazing,” the human said, smiling in wonder. “I’ve been in xenobiology since med. school and never during my three years of hitch-hiking on starships or since coming here have I ever seen a physiology like yours. Sorry, I’m Dr. Stephen Franklin by the way, what’s your name?”

“Oh, I’m the Doctor,” the alien said, grinning at Dr. Franklin. He was pretty sure he liked this Franklin. There were parts of what he said that reminded him of Martha (a pang of guilt washed through him at the thought of her) and he was fairly sure he wouldn’t have minded asking this man to travel with him if they had been in the right universe.

“‘The Doctor’?” Dr. Franklin repeated skeptically. “Of what, exactly?”

“Oh, all sorts of things,” the Doctor replied, still grinning. “So, does this mean I can go fix my ship and leave?” he asked Garibaldi, leaning around Franklin to do so.

“I need to talk to the Captain and Dr. Franklin about this,” Garibaldi said, remembering the transport from Earth that was due at Babylon 5 in a week’s time and that they were expecting a human intruder, not an alien. “In the meantime, though, I’ll have the nice guard outside walk you to your room. And you might want to think about calling your friend or contacting your home-world’s government to . . .” Garibaldi paused, noticing the alien’s abruptly melancholy expression. “What?”

“My planet’s gone,” the Doctor said softly, staring morosely at the table. “There’d be no point in trying to contact any of my people ‘cause they’re all dead.” Dr. Franklin lowered his scanner and Garibaldi shifted uncomfortably.

“What happened?” Dr. Franklin asked sympathetically.

“A war,” the Doctor replied heavily. “We lost. Well, we were losing but we’d all gone a bit mad towards the end; didn’t want to accept the inevitable.” He looked up at the two humans. “Because if we lost then the ones we were fighting would spread destruction across galaxies, across the universe until there was nothing left.” He swallowed and turned his gaze to the wall in front of him. “Of course, there were a slim few of us who kept a small sliver of sanity, if you can call it that. Realized there was no way for us to win so we had to do the next best thing and take both sides out at the same time.” The Doctor let out a harsh laugh that sounded more like a sob. “Guess who drew the short straw?” Garibaldi and Franklin both stiffened.

“You destroyed your own planet?” Garibaldi asked, wondering if he should have Stephen step away from the alien sitting in front of them.

“My ship and I were the only survivors,” the Doctor continued as if he hadn’t heard Garibaldi. “I had fully expected to die. Wished I had for a long time afterwards.”

“But, not anymore?” Franklin asked, glancing at the Security Chief. But the Doctor didn’t answer. He sat there, staring blankly at the wall while the two humans stood uneasily nearby. Finally, he jumped up from his seat, surprising both the medical officer and Garibaldi.

“Well,” the Doctor said, ignoring Franklin’s startled jump and Garibaldi reaching for his gun, “enough with the pity-party and the sob story. I believe you said something about a room?” The Security Chief glared at the alien suspiciously but slowly moved his hand away from his weapon. He tapped the communicator badge on his right hand.

“Security team to Interrogation Room Three. Transfer prisoner to a free cell.”

* * * * * *

“I still don’t trust him,” Garibaldi said immediately. The other three officers looked at him pointedly. “Alright, I know, I’m paranoid in general. But something about this guy just, I don’t know, rubs me the wrong way.” A day had passed since Dr. Franklin had run his scan of the mysterious intruder. His findings had called for a staff meeting with Garibaldi, Ivanova, and Sheridan.

“Well, he’s definitely not human, his scan proves that,” Franklin said, turning to the Commander and the Captain. “He has two hearts like a Centauri, except his left heart is an actual muscle and not a system of veins. His brain is unlike anything I’ve ever seen; if I had to guess I’d say he’s extremely advanced in an intellectual capacity as compared to humans. And when I focused in on his DNA, I saw three distinct strands.”

“Isn’t there a transport from Earth that’s supposed to pick him up at the end of the week?” Ivanova asked. “It’s not like we can send him back to Earth for intruding now; whatever planet he’s from would lodge a complaint, and they might not stop there.”

“The last thing Earth needs is another war like the one we had with the Minbari,” Sheridan said, agreeing with his second-in-command. “Seeing as how we’ve been unable to locate his ship it would seem likely that the technology his people possess would be on par with the Minbari, if not the Vorlons.”

“That’s the other thing,” Garibaldi said, wincing. “According to him, he doesn’t have a home planet anymore.”

“I beg your pardon?” Ivanova said, giving Garibaldi a smile that told him if he didn’t explain soon, he could look forward to her finally paying him back for the breakfast prank he and Sinclair pulled on her last year.

“He told us that his people were in a war with another race,” Franklin explained, “and it only ended when his planet was destroyed.”

“Actually, he said _he_ destroyed his own planet,” Garibaldi elaborated. “Made it sound like he expected it to be a suicide run.” Sheridan and Ivanova exchanged worried looks.

“Mr. Garibaldi, I would like your honest opinion on this prisoner’s threat level to this station,” Sheridan said. The Security Chief leaned back as he pondered the strange alien.

“Well, so far, he’s shown no inclination towards violence. Up until this point he’s only tried to run or talk his way out of confinement. We only have his word that his home world is gone, that he is the only survivor, and that he is the cause of its destruction, not to mention whether the war he talked about ever even happened. On top of all that, we found no weapons on him at all.”

“What about that metal device you took off him?” Sheridan asked.

“I’ve had some of my people run tests on it,” Garibaldi told him. “They say it emits sound waves when activated, and it affects different things when someone changes the frequencies. The sound’s annoying, but other than that they couldn’t find any harm in it.” Sheridan nodded before turning to Dr. Franklin.

“You were with him too, Stephen. What’s your opinion of the prisoner?”

“I wasn’t observing him for very long,” Franklin said, “and my medical expertise lies in the physical, not as much with the mental. However, he seemed to show remorse for his actions concerning his planet, even if he did shrug away from the subject afterwards. It’s certainly possible that he was lying about the whole thing, or at least pretending to feel guilt and regret, and if that last part’s true then he’s probably as dangerous as any other psychopath. If, on the other hand, he was completely honest with us, then it’s possible that he won’t treat us as a threat if we don’t treat him as one or actively threaten him in some way.”

“You mean like locking him up and preparing to send him to Earth for trial?” Garibaldi asked lightly. The four officers traded apprehensive glances.

“I’ll call the Senator,” Sheridan said, rising from the table.

“I’ll coordinate with Maintenance and C&C see if internal scans can’t detect his ship,” Ivanova said, following the Captain’s example.

“I’ll give you the location where we picked him up, it might help if you focus the search around there,” Garibaldi suggested.

“I’ll get back to work in Medlab,” Franklin said. Sheridan nodded. He, Ivanova, and Franklin left, leaving Garibaldi alone in the conference room. Just as the Head of Security was about to leave, his comm badge chirped at him.

“Garibaldi,” he said after pressing the badge.

“Chief, you know that intruder we found the other day?” Garibaldi felt his stomach drop.

“Tell me what happened, Welch,” he said, hoping that whatever had happened was small enough that it could be dealt with quickly.

“Well, sir, it looks like he escaped.” Garibaldi barely held back a swear.

“Anyone down there hurt?” he asked. If this guy had hurt his team nothing was going to stop Garibaldi from tearing him apart.

“A couple guards were knocked unconscious, but other than that they seem fine.”

“Ok, Welch, I’ll be right there. See if we can’t figure out how the hell he got out of there,” Garibaldi said, racing to find Sheridan and Ivanova. Why was it that things never went smoothly in this job, he wondered.

* * * * * *

 The Doctor strolled carefully down the dim corridor, focusing his keen senses so they would give him ample warning of someone trying to take him by surprise. He really hoped he wouldn’t run into any more guards or any unsavory elements that were likely to exist in such a large, diverse place as this station. He had managed to glean that the TARDIS had landed in Brown Sector, the section also known as Downbelow; home to more than a few criminals and dangerous beings, as well as those unfortunate enough to get to Babylon 5 but run out of funds to pay for food and lodgings or for passage to leave. Spotting a flash of blue, the Doctor’s whole demeanor brightened for a moment.

The TARDIS, his oldest and most loyal companion (which really said a lot about him and his luck with companions, didn’t it?), stood out proudly in the grungy, badly-lit corner of the corridor, the light on the top of her police box disguise a beacon in the near-darkness. Casually brushing aside the detritus that had accumulated in front of the doors, the Doctor swallowed and rested his hand on the blue wooden paneling with a cautiousness that revealed his unease. The Time Lord released a relieved breath upon feeling the warm rumbling of his living ship.

Ever since they landed, he had worried that his beloved ship would perish in this parallel world, as she nearly had the last time this had happened. This time, the smoke and explosions had been so intense that the TARDIS forced him to exit the capsule as soon as she materialized so he’d been unable to make sure she had survived. The bond he shared with her had faded to almost nothing and nothing he did to open her doors had worked. Distraught and frantic with worry, he had wandered the corridors of the station for only a few minutes before being picked up by Station Security. That had been a little less than thirty-six Earth hours ago.

Now, though, his bond with his time-and-space ship was stronger, if in enflamed pain on the TARDIS’s side, and he was confident enough that she would be alright for a little while longer here until they could return to the proper universe. The Doctor had no doubt that once they got back she would be in need of major repairs before she’d be well enough to travel. He wouldn’t be surprised if she needed a week or two to heal thoroughly. That’s how long it had taken last time they had inadvertently crashed in a parallel dimension. He winced as his hearts clenched once more. They’d been doing that rather a lot since he’d stepped out of the TARDIS the other day . . . . Oh, who was he kidding, they’d been like this ever since he lost Rose.

The Doctor drew in a ragged breath as the memories of her surged forward, reminding him why he usually did his best to keep those thoughts locked up. Thinking about her made him lose focus, made him want to dwell in memories of her and not return to the cold reality of her absence. The years had taught him better ways of hiding connections to her, but the stinging and the emptiness still remained. He had been lucky that Donna arrived when she did, after his botched farewell to Rose. Who knows what he would have done if the feisty ginger hadn’t snapped him out of his misery? He certainly didn’t want to think about it. And, on that note . . .

“Hey, Old Girl,” he crooned, stroking the faux-wood door panels of his ship and pushing all thoughts pertaining to a certain pink and yellow human to the back of his mind. “You feeling well enough to let me in?” The Time Lord pulled his key out of his dimensionally-transcendental pocket and inserted it in the TARDIS lock, smiling in amusement that the humans hadn’t found the key when they searched him. Just his luck he had stuck his sonic in the one normal pocket his suit had. The Doctor unlocked the door, took a deep breath, and stepped into his battered ship.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A link to the aforementioned breakfast prank for the curious (or for those who know what it is and want to see it again): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_GOHqe0vokU


	4. Chapter Four

_But in the rush of everything to waste_

_That you may have the power of standing still_

 “Talk to me, Welch,” Garibaldi ordered upon entering the cell. He had managed to catch up with Sheridan and Ivanova before they’d gotten very far and had apprised them of the developing situation. Neither of them had been happy with the news, though they both appreciated the update. Now here he was, trying to figure out how the prisoner had escaped so Station Security could recapture the alien before the transport back to Earth arrived. Garibaldi’s temporary aide looked up from his inspection of the cell.

“I took a look at the camera feed. Nothing much happened for the first few hours. Our guy walked around a bit, tapped on the walls; probably checking for weak spots. Then after checking out the vibe shower, he sat on the bed for a couple hours.”

“That’s not explaining how he got out of this cell and knocked out two armed guards,” Garibaldi said impatiently, as he looked over the room.

“About sixteen hours ago he got up and headed over to the vibe shower. Camera couldn’t catch most of what he was doing at that point. It was obvious he wasn’t taking a shower but if you were watching you wouldn’t be able to tell just —.”

“Was anyone watching?” Garibaldi interrupted. Welch shook his head.

“No, sir. Now, about an hour ago, he left the vibe shower, went to the bed and took out a pencil and some paper.”

“What?” Garibaldi exclaimed. The alien had been searched earlier, and he hadn’t had a pencil and paper then.

“I know,” Welch said. “He wrote something, put down the paper, and then walked over to the camera and unplugged it. From there, we’ve moved into speculation. Take a look at this.” He walked over to the vibe shower, Garibaldi close behind him. The Security Chief stared in amazement at the dismantled and reconfigured shower. In just sixteen hours of work the prisoner had managed to repurpose a vibe shower without tools (unless they had missed some of those while searching him as well). “Near as we can figure, he took apart the shower and recalibrated it so it would open the door. Then he must have waited for the guards on duty to come in and he knocked them out with another setting. They’re both recovering in Medlab.” Welch paused and held out a sheet of paper to Garibaldi.

“Here’s his note; he addressed it to you, Chief.”

Garibaldi took the folded piece of paper and opened it.

 

_Mr. Garibaldi,  
Sorry about this, honestly, but like I said before, I really need to fix my ship.  Or at least make sure she’s stable enough so I can go back to where I came from.  If I remember to do so I’ll send some money to take care of the damages - though I question the sense of letting criminals have such easy access to sonic technology in the first place.  Still, can’t complain about that seeing as how it’s getting me out of here.  And I suppose the likelihood of someone else doing this is incredibly low.  I am extremely clever after all, and I’ve been messing around with sonic technology for centuries, practically a millennium at this point.  Please don’t bother looking for me.  If all goes well, I’ll be gone soon and we’ll never have to see each other again.  Well, hopefully.  Possibly._

_The Doctor_

_P.S. Seriously though, it’s best if I don’t stay here longer than I have to so please don’t try to lock me up again.  The stability of your entire Universe might depend on it._

 

Garibaldi stared at the escaped prisoner’s note in dumbfounded silence. Without a word, he looked up at Welch who had been reading the note as well and was now looking at the Security Chief in apprehension.

“You know,” Garibaldi said, “this guy is really starting to piss me off.”

* * * * * *

The ‘guy’ in question rushed into the console room, vigorously rubbing dry his hair with a towel as he searched for the source of a chime that had been chiming for the past few minutes. Since the TARDIS had begun to recover from her impromptu universe-crossing, she had managed to bring out the Doctor’s bedroom and ensuite so the Time Lord had decided to take a quick shower and to change into his blue suit. There was nothing wrong with his brown suit, per se, except perhaps some stains from working on turning a sonic shower (really, the ingenuity of these humans, using sonic vibrations instead of a valuable commodity like water to get clean) into a make-do sonic screwdriver (sort of, it really only had two settings and neither had anything to do with driving screws or whatever the proper terminology for the purpose of a screwdriver was). But the Doctor had felt that wearing a different suit might help him avoid some scrutiny if he had to go back outside for something. Granted it was a very slim might, although the fact that he kept a spare sonic screwdriver in his blue suit was also a good reason to change.

In any case, he had just finished his shower and put on his trousers, trainers, and a burgundy vest when the chiming started. So here he was, towel in hand, trying to figure out what the TARDIS was trying to tell him. It didn’t take him very long.

“Okay, okay, I hear you, Girl,” he murmured as he brought up the monitor and draped the towel over his shoulders. “Now, let’s see what you’ve found.” The TARDIS had apparently decided to devote some of her recovering energy to finding out the general information about this universe by having a nice chat with the Station computer. Well, it might be more accurate to say ‘hacked into,’ rather than ‘chat.’ The TARDIS gave him a disgruntled warble. She hadn’t hacked anything — much. She really had found an AI buried in the Station computer’s programming. It had been shut off shortly after Babylon 5 was up and running for ‘personality issues.’

“So, naturally, you two are getting along splendidly, aren’t you?” the Doctor asked as he stroked the console in front of him. His ship let out an amused ping. “Don’t get too attached, now,” he warned. “We can’t take it back with us and, for all we know, they might actually _need_ it someday.” The TARDIS dimmed her lights for a couple seconds, letting him know that she already knew that, thank you very much, but really, it wasn’t often she got to chat with a computer so just let her enjoy it while she can.

“Sorry, Old Girl,” he told her with a sheepish grin. “Can’t blame me for being a little jealous and possessive, eh?” She hummed back at him, gave him the equivalent of a mental nuzzle, and ran through what she had been learning about this universe, this Station, and the people on this Station in particular.

* * * * * *

Lt. JG David Corwin frowned in confusion as he stared at his monitor in Babylon 5’s Observation Dome, more commonly known as Command and Control, C&C for short. “Commander?” he called out.

Commander Ivanova pivoted in place, pulled from her distracted thoughts and stargazing. The sooner the alien intruder situation was over and done with, the better. “Yes? Is there a problem?” Other than the ones we already know about, she thought.

“The Station’s computer is picking up an unidentified energy source in Brown Sector. It looks like something has accessed and downloaded our records,” Corwin told her, looking up.

“Which records? Can you narrow down the location?”

“I’m working on narrowing it down now,” Corwin said. “But whatever it is, Commander, I think it accessed everything.”

“Everything?” Ivanova repeated. “As in: data entries, Medlab reports? What?”

“As in everything,” Corwin said paling. “Personal communications, personnel reports, ambassadors’ itineraries. If it’s in the system, it’s been accessed. No matter the protection or security put on it.”

“Damn it; and I thought this day couldn’t get any worse. Notify Security as soon as you get the location on that thing. I’ll inform the Captain and Mr. Garibaldi about the security breach,” she told Corwin. Before she could touch her comm badge, it let out a chirp.

“What?” Ivanova snapped as she answered her communicator.

“Hello to you too,” Garibaldi said dryly, used to Ivanova’s temper. “I have something you and the Captain should probably see in my office.”

“I’ll be there in ten minutes,” Ivanova told him. “I have something the two of you need to know anyway. Ivanova out.” She pressed her comm badge to hang up and glanced at Corwin. “Except for me telling Garibaldi and Captain Sheridan, you do not let that security breach leave this room, understood?” Corwin nodded. Ivanova signaled another tech to take over her watch station before leaving the Observation Dome. Realistically, she knew that it was only a matter of time before the breach in security got out and spread among the station’s inhabitants. She could only hope that Garibaldi’s people would find the energy source and the alien intruder before anyone else did.

* * * * * *

“Hey, hey, what are you doing?” the Doctor hissed as more information continued to stream onto the monitor on the TARDIS console. “I didn’t need this much. Basic information would have been fine; you’ve got everything ever entered into the computer here. Someone’s going to notice!”

The TARDIS sent him a mental image of a girl ignoring him, nose in the air. The Doctor rubbed his face in his hands and it was only through sheer force of will that he was able to resist groaning. This was a horrible time for his TT capsule to get into one of her “I know better than my pilot” moods.

“Fine, but no more data fishing, alright? Save the energy for getting us back to Jenny and Donna.” He quickly read through the last of the station’s records before checking the TARDIS’s energy levels. “Looks like it’ll be another day before you have enough power to go back through the Void,” he said, ruffling his hair. “Should give me enough time to track down my coat and sonic.” With a last glance at the console, the Time Lord turned and walked back to his room to finish putting on his suit.

* * * * * *

“Just who the hell is this guy?” Garibaldi exclaimed. Sheridan stood by the wall near the door while Ivanova leaned against Garibaldi’s desk, her arms folded across her chest. She had just told them about the unidentified energy source in Brown Sector that had accessed and downloaded every piece of information stored in the station computer, as well as her suspicion that it was the work of the mysterious alien intruder. Garibaldi showed both of them the note that had been left in the escaped prisoner’s cell. “I’ve been asking around: none of the other races have heard of him. It’s almost like he didn’t exist before we found him.”

“Could it just be that he’s just some species that no one’s ever encountered yet? It’s happened before,” Ivanova asked while Sheridan stared at the note grimly.

“But you’d think a species with his technology and attitude would at least be mentioned somewhere: old legends, ancient myths, rumors. This guy’s nowhere to be found. And I still don’t know whether I should take his threat seriously or not,” Garibaldi told her. Sheridan looked up.

“I’m not so sure it’s a threat, Michael,” he said tiredly. “It reads more like a warning.”

“Like with Jinxo saying the Station would be doomed if he was forced to leave?” Ivanova asked. Sheridan gave her a puzzled look while Garibaldi rolled his eyes.

“One of the workers who helped build each of the five Babylon stations,” Garibaldi explained for the Captain’s sake. “Every time he left the first four, disaster happened: sabotage with the first two, the third blowing up, and the fourth disappearing. When this one was finished, he never left. Became a Lurker, was a petty thief for a while. He finally left last year; took up some Holy Grail quest. Station’s still spinning.” Sheridan nodded in understanding.

“Maybe a little like Jinxo, then,” Sheridan said. “It depends on how serious he was about the ‘stability of our Universe.’” Garibaldi frowned slightly. The note had said “your Universe,” almost as if the strange alien didn’t belong. “We’ll have to let the ambassadors and the League of Non-Aligned Worlds know about the breach.”

“That’ll go over well,” Garibaldi said.

“We don’t even know what he wants with that information, or even which piece of data he wanted the most,” Ivanova said. “So when should we tell them? If we do it now, I wouldn’t put it past some of them to try and hunt him down. They’d tear him apart.”

“It will probably get out sooner or later,” Sheridan said. “But with any luck we can bring him in and get rid of whatever copies of the records he’s made before we tell anyone. We can send him and his ship back to Earth and then deal with the backlash afterwards.”

“Speaking of sending him to Earth,” Garibaldi said, “I have some people on his transport ship waiting on hold on Gold Channel Three.”

“You’ve been keeping them on hold all this time while we’ve been talking?” Ivanova asked incredulously. Sheridan frowned at him. Gold Channel was only used for priority messages for the senior command staff; Garibaldi shouldn’t have kept them waiting.

“Give me moment, you’ll see why,” Garibaldi told them. “Ok, ladies, sorry for the delay,” he said turning to the black view-screen behind him and pressing a button to turn it on. Two women appeared on the screen, one blonde and one redhead; both wearing the black uniform of a PsiCop.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, I'm not sure how to switch up fonts, but I did have a font and size picked out for the Doctor's signature if you want to see the effect I was going for: Vladimir Script, size 22  
> Basically, some fancy, loopy, almost cursive scribble.


	5. Chapter Five

_Off any still or moving thing you say._

_Two such as you with such a master speed_

“I was informed of what happened the last time the PsiCorps tracked down a fugitive on Babylon 5,” Judith said frostily. “I did not expect to be treated any differently.”

“I’ve read that report as well,” the brown-haired man in a blue EarthForce Navy uniform said. Judith recognized him as Captain John Sheridan, newly appointed Commanding Officer of the space station. “From what I read, Babylon 5 cooperated with PsiCorps completely.”

“Perhaps you should ask your junior officers for the _unofficial_ report, Captain,” Judith suggested with a cold stare. The woman next to Sheridan shook her head, her countenance revealing something close to amazed disgust.

“That’s a first,” Commander Ivanova remarked. “A PsiCop recommending looking at a report that reflects badly on PsiCorps? Never thought I’d hear one of you say that.”

“If I may,” Sheridan interjected pointedly, warning both Judith and Ivanova with a stern look. “Would you kindly tell us the reason for your call and what PsiCorps’ interest is in coming to my station?” Judith straightened her already stiff posture.

“PsiCorps has received word of a possible rogue telepath on Babylon 5, Captain. Ms. Bleddyn and I were sent to investigate and to apprehend him if necessary. I thought it prudent to advise you of our immanent arrival.”

“This “rogue telepath” you’re talking about wouldn’t happen to be the intruder we found about two days ago, would it? Tall, skinny guy in brown pinstripes who calls himself ‘The Doctor?’” Mr. Garibaldi asked nonchalantly. Mallory inhaled in a sharp gasp, distracting Judith from her train of thought.

“You said a bloke in a brown suit?” Mallory said, face paler than Judith had ever seen it. The PsiCop refrained from calling the woman out on her breach of promise. There would be time for that later. At the moment, the mysterious telepath was on the verge of revealing something from her past.

“Yes?” Garibaldi said slowly, confused by the blonde’s fervor.

“Alien with two hearts, a gob that won’t stop, and some really, really great hair, who goes ‘round insistin’ his name’s the Doctor, an’ wears a brown pinstriped suit with a big brown coat and trainers, has a sonic device that he swears is a screwdriver, _and_ has probably already escaped from wherever you were keepin’ him?” Mallory asked, quivering with an emotion Judith couldn’t place. The girl’s eyes were wide and shining.

“Alien?!” hissed Judith. The three Babylon 5 officers stared at Mallory with no small amount of shock.

“Were you the friend on Earth he kept mentioning?” Garibaldi asked, his expression darkening. Mallory let out a harsh snort.

“Not likely. Been locked up on Mars for the past few years. God, he doesn’t even know I’m here.” She stilled, her eyes loosing focus. “He’s really here.” Her gaze shot back to Garibaldi. “Did he say anythin’ about his ship? Or about Universes collapsin’?”

“Now wait just a second,” Ivanova said with a frown. “PsiCorps doesn’t have jurisdiction over alien telepaths. We don’t even know that he _is_ a telepath, but he definitely isn’t human. If he is the person you’re looking for, you might as well save yourself the trip and leave the transport before you reach the Jump Gate at Io.”

“Except you have no idea where he is now, do you?” Mallory asked with a smug smile.

“Your point, Ms. Bleddyn?” Captain Sheridan asked.

“I know what he’s like and I know that dependin’ on how badly damaged his ship was getting here he won’t be able to leave your station for a while,” she told him. “Dependin’ on how reckless he’s feelin’ he might try and do some explorin’. But even if you are able to find him you’ll never find his ship.” She grinned again. “I can.”

“What do you mean we’ll never find his ship?” Garibaldi asked hotly.

“No offense meant to your people, but the Doctor’s ship doesn’t look like one. It’s disguised and it stops people from noticin’ it like a . . . .” Mallory frowned and snapped her fingers twice. “Ooh! Like a Muggle-Repelling Charm!” She paused, seeing four blank faces. “Right. No Harry Potter,” she muttered.

“I thought PsiCorps didn’t let the mentally unstable telepaths become PsiCops,” Ivanova said, crossing her arms over her chest.

“Ms. Bleddyn is a . . . special case,” Judith said, looking like she’d bitten into a lemon.

“Look,” Mallory said, “if you want to find the Doctor _and_ his ship you’ll need my help. And, unfortunately, that means me and my chaperone,” she gestured to Judith, “will be on your space station until you find them. Now, any of you have a problem with this?” Judith glared at her sourly but said nothing. The three officers on the view-screen all looked incredibly dubious but also stayed silent. Mallory grinned widely. “Brilliant. See you lot in a few days then!”

“Just a moment, Ms. Bleddyn,” Captain Sheridan said. The blonde telepath raised an eyebrow at him, acknowledging him silently. “How well do you know the Doctor?” Her grin faded away, leaving a melancholy expression on her face.

“I can honestly say that, exceptin’ Himself, I know him better than anyone in this Universe,” she said solemnly. The ends of her mouth twitched slightly upward. “Can’t say that I know how well that is though. It’s been a very long time since we last spoke with each other.”

“Do you know about the other members of his species?” Garibaldi asked.

“He told me he was the last; that the others all died in a war.” Mallory’s gaze flickered from Sheridan to Garibaldi. “I asked him once if maybe some of them had survived as well and he said he’d feel it in here,” she explained, tapping her temple.

“Did he tell you how the war ended as well?” pressed Sheridan. Mallory nodded “yes.”

“It was his planet, his _people_ , or the Universe,” she said softly. “And it killed him to do it.” Her gaze sharpened. “If you’re askin’ if he’s dangerous, the answer’s yes. To you?” Mallory shrugged. “So long’s you haven’t tried to commit genocide, destroy a planet, take over the galaxy, or anything like that you should be fine.”

“That’s a bit hypocritical,” Ivanova muttered. Mallory bit her lip to keep in a snort of laughter.

“Thank you for your insight, Ms. Bleddyn,” Sheridan said. “We’ll expect your arrival by the end of the week.”

* * * * * *

“What was all that?” Judith hissed after the call ended. Mallory looked at her puzzledly. “Didn’t I tell you,” the redhead said, switching tracks, “that you were only to speak when you were spoken too? That you were to let _me_ take point?”

“Right, like that was gonna happen,” Mallory said with a snort. “PsiCorps never got any evidence that there was an actual runaway telepath on Babylon 5, just word of one and an anomaly. And while the Doctor counts as an anomaly, the Corps has no jurisdiction over him, like that woman said. They weren’t gonna let us on as PsiCops. They’ll let me on because I have information they want about the Doctor and they’ll let you on ‘cause you won’t let me out of your sight.” Judith stared at her harshly.

“You’re planning something, aren’t you?” she said.

“Me? I’m absolute rubbish at plans, didn’t they tell you that?” Mallory said stepping around the PsiCop. Judith narrowed her eyes and Mallory flinched. “Get. Out,” she ordered through clenched teeth.

“You’re hiding something from me,” Judith said, unmoved. “From the Corps. We’ve been lenient with you thus far; done everything we could to make you feel at home with a loving family.”

“Bollocks,” Mallory bit out, glaring at Judith. “I’m just an exotic prisoner you haven’t broken yet. If any member of my family had tried pullin’ all this I would’ve called 999 for domestic abuse. I am not one of those orphaned telepaths you can brainwash into believing PsiCorps can do no wrong. Now get out of my head or you won’t find your way back into yours.” Judith’s expression dripped with disdain, but Mallory relaxed after a few seconds.

“Whatever it is you’re hiding, I will find it out.”

“You and the rest of PsiCorps have all tried to get past my shields,” Mallory said. “No one’s been able to break through, even with all your bloody drugs bein’ pumped into me. You’re wasting your time.”

“We’ll see.”

* * * * * *

 _Maybe I should have asked Martha to give me back that perception filter_ , the Doctor thought as he skid to a halt, barely avoiding slamming into the wall of the corridor. A security patrol had found him not five minutes after leaving the TARDIS and he had been running ever since. Then again, he told himself while ducking into an unlit corner; he could have also just made a new one before he left the safety of his ship.

The Doctor froze as the two humans rushed past his hiding spot. He had managed to get far enough ahead of the patrol that they’d lost sight of him and he was hoping that they wouldn’t notice his trick for a while. At least until he put some distance between them.

He waited until the pounding of their feet no longer thundered in his ears before cautiously easing his way out from under the darkened stairwell. He stared in the direction the security patrol had gone and rapidly revised his previous plan. Going straight for the Coat and Sonic were out. New next step: Make a quick perception filter, then go for the Coat and Sonic. There, lovely. He turned around only to stand face-to-chest with a sturdy, muscled alien that had probably evolved from a rock at one point in its species evolutionary history.

“Little lost, Little Boy Blue?” asked a voice to his left. Out of the corner of his eye, the Doctor saw what looked like a male human step forward. Now that he was paying attention, he could hear two more people behind him. Great.

“Think I am a bit, yeah,” he said brightly, pasting on a grin and turning towards the human speaker. “You wouldn’t happen to know where the nearest shop is by any chance, would you? I just love a little shop.” He calmed himself, told himself not to assume that this was a lead up to an attack. If this was all a misunderstanding, with no harm meant, he’d happily go on his way. If not . . . . Well, he’d survived worse than four people trying to mug him in a badly lit corridor of a space station. He ignored the reminder of how his seventh life had ended because of a gang in a badly lit alley and Grace's floundering because of his alien anatomy. The doctors here would probably be used to strange anatomy out of necessity.

“Well, don’t he look fancy,” the grungy human said with a leer, moving closer to the Doctor while the other three ringed in the Time Lord. “Let’s see what other fancy things he’s got. Grab him!” The Doctor let his grin fade. So much for the misunderstanding. Damn.

 _*_ * * * * *

Dr. Franklin looked up as a patient was carted into his Medlab. Security had called ahead about a nasty fight in Downbelow between a new small gang of thieves and their most recent target who, it seemed, had either fought back or somehow tricked the thieves into fighting amongst themselves. Not that that had stopped one of the gang from stabbing him before Security showed up.

Franklin frowned in momentary confusion. Brown Sector wasn’t really heavily patrolled, usually, and it was incredibly uncommon for Security personnel to catch a crime in the act down there. What had made _this_ fight so special, he wondered as he hurried to the patient’s side. His eyes widened in astonishment. “What the hell are you doing here?”

“Bleeding,” the Doctor grumbled. The alien in a blue suit winced as he took a careful breath. “Honestly, Dr. Franklin, what does it look like I’m doing? Inspecting the ceiling? I imagine I’d need to be a good deal closer to do that.”

“Doctor, patient is fibrillating,” a young med-tech called out.

“Oh, God, not this again,” the Doctor groaned, face pale. “You’d think with this technology you’d catch the two hearts a bit better than an x-ray in San Francisco in 1999. I am NOT FIBRILLATING.” The Doctor screwed his eyes shut as he gasped in pain. “Right, no shouting.”

“Try to refrain from talking too, if you please,” Franklin said dryly as he helped wheel the Doctor over to be prepped for surgery. “Keep in mind the patient is not human; calling up his baseline stats now.” He rushed to the computer and pulled up the scan he had taken of the Doctor almost twenty-four hours ago to compare them to the alien’s current statistics. He quickly found the change in blood pressure, respiration, and pulse and turned around only to find the alien struggling to shrug out of his suit jacket. “Would you lie back down before you kill yourself?” Franklin snapped before trying to get the Doctor supine again.

“I’m not gonna let you ruin this jacket by snipping it off me,” hissed the Doctor as he succeeded in getting the blue jacket off. “The vest I can replace easily. And you’re far more likely to kill me if you think you’re gonna operate on me. If you get the bleeding stopped, my biology can handle the rest. I’d rather avoid waking up in a morgue; once was quite enough for my tastes.” Franklin shook his head in confusion. Alarms started beeping.

“Everything’s falling: blood pressure, respiration, pulse, even temperature,” a second med-tech called out.

“Doctor, stay with me!” Franklin said. The alien looked at him blearily.

“Oh, yeah, healing coma. Should’ve mentioned that,” he mumbled, trying to keep his eyes open. “Completely normal. Just get the bleeding stopped, Dr. Franklin.” The alien closed his eyes. Everyone surrounding him stilled for a moment as his breathing seemed to cease. Franklin held his own breath as he double-checked the monitors.

“There’s still a pulse,” he said, mentally sighing in relief. “Come on, people, we need to get this bleeding stopped. Someone get a sample of his blood; see if we can’t synthesize it for a transfusion ‘cause I doubt we have anything his body would accept. Let’s move!”

* * * * * *

“The four who jumped him are in the brig now,” Garibaldi said, staring at the Doctor through the glass partition that separated the recovery room from the rest of Medlab. “They said he never even through a punch. Just kept dodging them until my guys showed up.”

“Well, he’s extremely lucky that knife didn’t hit anything vital,” Franklin told his friend. “It nicked what I think is his liver, but by the time we got him open, it was already starting to repair itself. Considering the rate of healing, I doubt I’d be able to tell if the knife had hit something else.” Franklin paused and turned his attention to the Doctor as well. “Michael,” he said quietly, “I also found evidence of old physical trauma: Bones in his fingers cleanly broken and healed, and faint scarring on his upper torso consistent with whipping and electrical burns.”

“You’re saying this guy was tortured?” Garibaldi asked, looking at Franklin.

“I can’t give a good estimate as to when,” Franklin said, “but, yes.” Garibaldi nodded once.

“Any idea when he’ll rejoin the living?” he asked Dr. Franklin.

“None at all,” Franklin replied. “He’s been out of it for hours. I think he called it a ‘healing coma.’ I expect he’ll most likely wake up when he’s completely healed, but it could happen earlier. Or it could happen later. It could never happen at all.”

“I always feel so much better after talking with you,” Garibaldi quipped.

* * * * * *

The Doctor looked around slowly, taking in his surroundings. He was in a long, darkened corridor he did not recognize. It wasn’t something on the TARDIS and he was having trouble placing it. It’s Babylon 5, he realized. Why in the name of Borusa’s pink, frilly knickers (and no, he’d had nothing to do with that, whatever his former teacher had thought) was he dreaming about Babylon 5?

At least, he was pretty sure it was a dream, because the last thing he remembered was going into a healing coma and now he was standing by himself and wearing his brown suit and tan coat. Plus, he didn’t think the real Babylon 5 had a wolf roaming its halls. He and the wolf stared at each other, neither one moving forward or away. Its eyes glowed gold. _Lord of Time_ , a feminine voice echoed in his mind. He jumped, startled, and spun around, sensing something behind him.

He saw Donna, back in her wedding dress from last Christmas, standing on a catwalk a few meters in front of him. “You do not belong here,” she said. The Doctor frowned, bemused. That didn’t sound like something Donna would say at all. Either his imagination needed a bit of work or . . . . The Doctor tensed. Something was in his head. He was compelled to turn around once more.

Jack was behind him, not the Jack Harkness he had dropped off in Cardiff after escaping the Library, but the Jack from the Game Station, before the Daleks killed him and Rose resurrected him. “The Bad Wolf is searching for her mate,” Jack said. The Doctor froze, his brown eyes wide in shock.

“You know,” he said, sticking his clenched fists into his pockets. “Where I’m from it’s a bit rude to go poking into other peoples’ heads without permission. And this is a bit more than poking.” His jaw tightened. “If you’ve seen enough of my memories to show me all of this, then you know the reputation I have and what I’m capable of. Now, I’d suggest that either you leave, or come out from the shadows to introduce yourself and tell me why you’re in my head.”

* * * * * *

_Three Days Later_

Commander Ivanova stood stiffly in one of Babylon 5’s private docking bays, waiting for the two PsiCops to leave the prison transport. She allowed herself a moment to dwell in the bitterness and anger she felt towards PsiCorps before walling her feelings off. She was a professional and an officer in EarthForce, and she’d be damned before she let her turbulent emotions prevent her from seeing to her duties. Though, if she found out that Garibaldi had invented his excuse for not being here instead of her to avoid escorting the PsiCops to Captain Sheridan’s office, she would throttle him.

Ivanova dragged herself out of her thoughts as she saw the two women approach. “Ms. Leui, Ms. Bleddyn, welcome to Babylon 5. If you would follow me, I’ll take you to the Captain and then we can discuss the matter you came here for.” With that part finished, she turned to lead the pair to the transport tube.

“Is he even still onboard this station?” Leui said after entering the transport tube. Ivanova was spared from replying by the other PsiCop’s quick answer.

“He’d never leave without his ship, and she’s still here,” Bleddyn said, refusing to look at her partner. Ivanova quietly observed the tension between the two women. She wondered for a moment what they had been arguing about when the blonde telepath surprised her. “Sorry, but I never got your name before. I’m Mallory, but you can call me Mal, if you’d like.” Ivanova stared at her, noticing Leui’s pained expression. “Don’t mind my overseer, she’s just put out that my leash isn’t as tight as she’d like it to be. So, what’s your name?”

“Commander Susan Ivanova,” she replied. “Shouldn’t you know that already?” Bleddyn gave her a small, sad smile.

“I was told who was who, but I was still never introduced to you properly. And it wasn’t like she was gonna do anythin’,” Bleddyn said, nodding towards Leui. “If she’d had it her way, I wouldn’t be talkin’ to you at all.”

Before Ivanova could comment, the transport tube stopped and the computer announced their arrival at destination as the tube doors opened. “Ladies, right this way.” The sooner this was over with, the sooner she could get back to directing traffic in C&C.


	6. Chapter Six

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We're in the homestretch now, folks!

_Cannot be parted nor be swept away_

_From one another once you are agreed_

“Thank you, Commander,” Sheridan said once Ivanova arrived with the two PsiCops in tow. He knew the resentment she felt towards PsiCorps for the death of her mother still raged within her, and he appreciated that she was being civil with the visitors thus far. He turned his careful attention towards the blonde telepath. “Ms. Bleddyn, you said in our earlier conversation that you would be able to find the Doctor’s ship?” The woman gave him a calculating look.

“I’d be able to, yeah,” she said, “but you wouldn’t be able to get in it, and I’d advise highly against movin’ her. So, I don’t see why I should find her for you lot.”

“You seem pretty sure that we wouldn’t be able to get in,” Ivanova remarked from beside Sheridan. Bleddyn gave her a feral grin.

“Believe me, you wouldn’t think it to look at her, but she’s tough and she’s got a bit of a vindictive streak; I’ve seen her lock the Doctor out when she was mad at him. Ultimately, she decides who she lets in, and if you don’t have a key, you don’t have a prayer.”

“Why do you keep referring to that infernal ship as if it were alive?” Leui snapped. Sheridan watched Bleddyn freeze and turn toward her partner.

“Maybe because she is?” Bleddyn said with ice in her voice. “I know it’s a bit much to ask that you drop the superiority complex the bloody Corps drilled into you, but I’d appreciate it if you didn’t insult the best ship in the universe.” Sheridan felt Ivanova stiffen and glanced at her to check if she was displaying the same shock he felt. He’d never heard of a PsiCop speaking ill about PsiCorps, especially in front of two mundanes. His second in command glanced at him as well, but she had managed to keep a straight face. Sheridan’s attention was drawn back to the two telepaths. “Since the Doctor’s ship is still here, can I assume that your people tracked him down again? He never did like sticking around longer than necessary.”

“My Security Chief’s people did find him, yes,” Sheridan acknowledged. “He had a run in with some of the Lurkers in Brown Sector first, though. He’s still recovering in Medlab.” Bleddyn stilled and stared at him.

“How bad is it?” she asked quietly. Sheridan made a mental note of her white-knuckled fists and pale face.

“Dr. Franklin said his wound is almost completely healed, but he’s been in a coma for the past three days,” he told her. The blonde telepath’s eyes narrowed.

“He shouldn’t have been in a coma that long, if he’s completely healed,” she muttered, frowning. “Something else must be wrong.”

“Our Head Doctor said that he seems to be in good health, other than some previously healed trauma, his stab wound, and his coma,” Ivanova said. Bleddyn turned her head sharply.

“What do you mean ‘previously healed trauma’?”

* * * * * *

For the second time in three days, Dr. Franklin looked up from filling out a report on his computer terminal as someone burst into his Medlab. This time, however, he wasn’t startled by a patient, but by a scowling blonde in a PsiCop uniform. He was even more surprised when Captain Sheridan, Commander Ivanova, and a second PsiCop came in after. “Excuse me,” he said loudly. The last three all turned their attention toward him and stopped. He failed to notice the first woman kept walking. “I assume you all have a very good reason for barging into Medlab without advance warning?” he asked, staring pointedly at Sheridan and Ivanova.

“Sorry, Stephen,” Sheridan said. Franklin saw they were all breathing hard. “When we told her about the Doctor she practically flew down here.”

_She?_ Oh right, there had been four people who’d come into Medlab. Franklin whipped around in time to see the blonde telepath enter the Doctor’s recovery room. “Hey!” he protested, rushing after her. He entered the room and his eyes were immediately drawn to the woman. She stood over the unconscious alien, concern etched into her face . . . and bare hands holding the Doctor’s right. Looking down, he saw her leather gloves on the floor; they looked as if she’d pulled them off and tossed them aside in a great hurry.

“Seem to be makin’ a habit of this,” Franklin heard her say. “Least it’s not Christmas, though, yeah? That’d really be bringin’ up mem’ries.”

“Should you really be touching him without your gloves?” Franklin asked, stepping forward. The woman glanced at him before turning her gaze back to the Doctor.

“Sleepers haven’t worn off just yet, and I hate those gloves. Can barely feel anything in them,” she said. She looked down at the hand she was holding. “I’ve had this dream before, where he’s not a bloody hologram on a beach, he’s really come through. Don’t know why I always thought we’d both be conscious for it, though. This makes so much more sense, considerin’.”

Franklin stared at the woman. Who was this woman, that PsiCorps had made her a PsiCop but still felt the need to drug her? Sleepers were only used when a human telepath didn’t want to join the Corps or go to prison. That had been the fate of Ivanova’s mother when she had been discovered: a weekly dose of Sleepers until the poor woman killed herself ten years later.

The Doctor stirred, jolting Franklin from his thoughts. With a few steps, he was by his patient’s side to check vitals. “I’m going to need that hand for a moment,” he told the woman, glancing at the hand she was still holding. She tensed and looked from him to the waking Doctor before staring at Franklin's face. The medical doctor did not budge or back down. With a small sigh, she closed her eyes and nodded, apparently finding whatever it was she had been looking for, before setting down the hand and backing away.

Franklin stayed by his patient’s bedside and watched as the Doctor’s eyes blinked open. “Oh,” he said, frowning confusedly. “It was you. That’s odd. I could’ve sworn I heard -.” The alien froze, his gaze on the blonde telepath behind Franklin. He stared at her, eyes wide. Swallowing, he said, “Nevermind, apparently I’m still dreaming. Or I’m hallucinating again. Well, with any luck this one’ll go better than last time which it should considering the person who organized my last hallucination of her is gone now but it’s still not that much better since she’s not really here and -.”

“Doctor,” the woman said, stepping forward. She reached out with her hand and the Doctor flinched and wrenched his gaze away from her. She stopped and studied him. “You know,” she said, “you could just ask someone else if I’m actually here, instead of assuming. Do you dream about me a lot then, that I get this reaction from you?” The Doctor stared at the wall to his left. “You’re lucky my mum’s not here. She’d probably have smacked you by now.” Dr. Franklin saw the alien wince. “Course, then she’d probably hug you and give you a snog.”

“Rooose!” the Doctor cried out in horrified disgust, finally turning his full attention back to her. She gave him a wide grin.

“Got a reaction out of you, didn’t it?” she asked, pointing at him. He stared at her forlornly, suddenly seeming quite small. Swallowing again, he looked pleadingly at Dr. Franklin.

“If you had really been talking to yourself, I would have tried to get your attention before now,” Franklin told him. “But if you don’t want to trust _my_ word, I have about half a dozen people outside who can tell you the same thing.” Slowly, the Doctor’s gaze drifted back to Rose.

“Rose?” asked the Doctor, trembling. She nodded and stepped forward. Slowly, she reached out a second time and cupped his cheek. The Doctor shuddered violently and gasped. He rose up and wrapped his arms tightly around her and she did likewise — fingers buried in each other’s hair and noses smushed in each other’s shoulders. “Rose,” he whimpered.

“I know,” she told him. “I know.” Franklin shuffled out of the room to give the couple some privacy to talk.

* * * * * *

It took the Doctor longer than he cared to admit to pull himself together. He sat and held Rose close, recataloguing her scent and how her body felt against his and ignoring the sputtering part of his brain that was trying to figure out how she could be here and the small, cynical voice that feared he would wake up any minute, alone. Luckily, Rose seemed content to stay in his embrace, rubbing his back and stroking the back of his head until he got his breathing back under control.

Finally, he pulled back just enough to see her face. She was watching him carefully, perhaps in case he broke down again. He gave her a soft smile. “Hello,” he said.

“Hello,” she laughed, smiling in return. He rested his forehead on hers, relishing the renewed luxury of touching her. His eyes caught a glimpse of a metal badge on her shirt and he frowned slightly.

“Rose?” he asked, confused.

“Hmm?”

“Why’re you wearing a PsiCorps badge?” She frowned as well and pulled her head back to look at him properly.

“You’ve only been here a few days; how do you know about the Corps?” she asked. His cheeks tinged pink and he shifted uncomfortably. If his arms hadn’t been otherwise engaged in holding Rose, the Doctor would have rubbed the back of his neck.

“The TARDIS, sort of, accessed all the information stored in the station computer. I was trying to get pertinent data about this universe in case I needed to stay here longer than a few days — so it’s actually a pretty good thing I did — but she went a little overboard and some of the files that she made sure I looked at were some files about PsiCorps.” The Doctor swallowed, looking at Rose concernedly. “What happened?” Rose withdrew slightly; her eyes dimmed and her hands slid down from around his shoulders to rest over his hearts.

“How long’s it been for you?” she asked quietly, not looking him in the eyes.

“Almost five years,” he admitted. “Well, technically, almost five years. One of those years was reversed because of a paradox and there aren’t a lot of people who remember that it happened, but I did live through it so I add it to the count.” Rose looked up and gave him a small, rueful smile.

“It’s been a lot longer than five years for me.” The Doctor tensed and his grip around her waist tightened. His eyes darted frantically over her facial features before returning to her eyes.

“How . . . how much longer, exactly?” he asked, not caring that worry had made his question a bit higher pitched than usual. She raised an eyebrow at him.

“Doctor, if I tell you exactly how long it’s been for me since we last spoke, you’ll find a way to blame yourself and spend a lot of time being self-reproachful. Time that could be better spent doing other things,” Rose told him.

“I’ll probably do that anyway,” the Doctor mumbled, grimacing.

“Right,” she sighed. She was silent for a moment. “It was long enough to see my little brother graduate from Uni, for Mickey and Jake to retire, and for Mum and Dad to die of old age.” The Doctor’s face fell.

“Oh, Rose,” he murmured, pulling her into another embrace. She returned it readily. “Were they happy?” he asked quietly.

“They were so happy that they had another chance with each other,” Rose reassured him. “They were happy they got to spend more time with me and for havin’ the opportunity to raise Tony. The only thing they were worried about — other than Mum goin’ on about how I still hadn’t found a bloke — was my welfare and safety after they were gone.”

“That sounds exactly like something Jackie’d worry about — your love-life,” the Doctor said, smiling wryly as he pulled back again. “No, wait, hang on,” he said abruptly, confused. “Why would they only be concerned with your ‘welfare and safety’? What about your —.” He paused, not for a lack of words, but for the difficulty in associating the word with her. “Brother. What about his ‘welfare and safety’?”

“Pete — Dad left Vitex to Tony,” Rose explained. “The patents from the company products alone were enough to support him until he decided what he wanted to do. He decided to see a bit of the world before settling down to see how he liked runnin’ Vitex. So, that’s my brother’s welfare all set. And he’s nowhere near as jeopardy-friendly as I am; his safety wasn’t really an issue.”

“Considering how jeopardy-friendly you are, that’s not entirely comforting,” the Doctor said. She playfully smacked his shoulder and he winced theatrically.

“Anyway, couldn’t exactly keep this hidden,” she said, pointing at her youthful appearance. “People came up with all sorts of weird explanations. Fountain of Youth, aliens, real-life Dorian Gray. . . .”

“Probably from someone who never read the book,” the Doctor muttered. “Dorian remained young in appearance because his portrait reflected his inner evil and immorality. Saying you’re a real-life Dorian Gray is —.”

“Doctor,” Rose said, cutting him off.

“You already knew that,” he said sheepishly. She grinned at him.

“Yep. Pointed it out to the conspiracy theorist who said it, too. But I figured it was only a matter of time before Torchwood — Dad, Mickey, and Jake, rather — wouldn’t be able to shield me any longer. So a few months after Mum’s funeral, when Mickey and Jake were distracting everyone with a joint retirement party, I set up a way to get me to a different universe.”

“I told you the walls were closed,” the Doctor said tightly. “You risked collapsing two universes just to get away from Earth?”

“I’d have run into the same problem if I just tried to leave the planet in a space-ship,” Rose argued. “Besides, I was aiming for another parallel universe, not our home one. And I wound up here.” The Doctor released her and rubbed his face. “You said it was the walls between Pete’s World and our universe; you didn’t include other parallel universes in that warning.”

“I thought that was understood!” the Doctor said, gesticulating widely. “If I had thought it was as simple as getting to Pete’s World in a roundabout way, I would have tried it!”

“You never figured out how we crashed in Pete’s World the first time!” Rose exclaimed. “Or if you did, I don't remember you telling me. And do I really need to point out how many times you were too oblivious to see the simple solution and someone had to jump in to save you?”

“That’s beside the point!” he told her. “You could have —.” He stopped himself, not wanting to give voice to his fear. Hesitantly, Rose reached for his hand. He let her take it and held on tightly to her.

“I’m sorry,” she said softly. “I was scared and this was the only thing I could think of that had a possibility of working. I am sorry, Doctor.” He closed his eyes and sighed. With his free hand, he cupped her cheek as he gently kissed her forehead.

“Sorry; taking my worries out on you,” he murmured, resting his forehead against hers again. She gave him a small smile and nuzzled his nose with hers. “So, you wound up in this universe. What happened then?”

“The Hopper burnt itself out gettin’ me here,” Rose explained, “and I tore it apart before PsiCorps got their grubby hands on it. Landed right in one of their facilities, oh, must’ve been about three years now. It’s actually a bit funny, how shocked they all were when I just appeared out of nowhere. Anyway, they probably would’ve done something really awful to me if they hadn’t discovered that little gift from the TARDIS,” she said, tapping her temple. The Doctor looked horrified.

“They thought you were a telepath from this universe. And any human telepath they find —.”

“Has to join, go to prison, or get a weekly dose of a very debilitating telepathic suppressant,” Rose interrupted. “Or some combination of the lot.”

“And you chose to join?” the Doctor asked, raising his eyebrows.

“I thought I’d have an easier time escaping that way,” Rose grumbled. “Didn’t count on how fascinatin’ they found my mind.” The Doctor froze.

“Rose, they didn’t . . . .”

“They never broke through the shields you and the TARDIS set up for me,” Rose said. “They never knew how close they came a couple times, but they never got all the way in. I’ve no doubt that would’ve changed if they thought what was in my mind was more important, but I was able to point most of them in different directions my first year. Then that whole Ironheart fiasco happened. Did the TARDIS give you any information on that?” The Doctor nodded slowly.

“Some, but I think the file was a bit corrupted. Well, heavily edited at the very least. Let’s see: Ironheart; escaped telepath who claimed that PsiCorps had been experimenting on him to try and create a “stable” telekinetic. Two PsiCops tracked him down to this station where he killed one and knocked out the other. He took a transport and left the station. The file then claimed that his transport fell apart because of his unstable powers.” Rose snorted.

“Yeah, that’s the “official” report Babylon 5 gave. What happened after he reached the station never really concerned me, but his escape spooked PsiCorps. He killed the head researcher who had been working on him, broke out another telepath they were experimenting on, and visited me.” The Doctor’s jaw clenched until Rose squeezed his hand. “He offered to bust me out too, but I told him it’d be better if I escaped a different way.” She grimaced. “Probably should’ve taken him up on his offer. They started dosing me with Sleepers after that.”

“What,” he said flatly.

* * * * * *

 “For the last time, no one else is going in that room,” Franklin ordered, staring down the red-headed PsiCop. “That man may be an escaped criminal, but, at the moment, he is my patient and until I say otherwise, no one besides me, his family, or Mr. Garibaldi is allowed to talk to him.”

“You allowed Ms. Bleddyn to stay with him,” Ms. Leui said, frowning at the Medical Officer.

“Considering their reunion, I think it’s fair to say that she is family to him,” Franklin said. Leui’s frown became even more pronounced.

“But they’re not the same species,” she remarked. Behind her back, Ivanova rolled her eyes.

“Funnily enough, Ms. Leui,” Sheridan said, “it is possible to fall in love with an alien.”

“Everyone’s an alien to me anyway these days,” the Doctor said. The four humans jumped, startled by his interruption. The strange alien stood a few feet away from the door to his recovery room, wearing a hospital gown and a wry smile. Ms. Bleddyn stood behind him slightly to his right. “Now, I have a few questions to ask you all if you’d be so kind to answer them: One, where are my clothes, Two, why are you lot calling Rose ‘Ms. Bleddyn’, and Three, whose bright idea was it at PsiCorps to forcibly inject Rose with Sleepers?”


	7. Chapter Seven

_That life is only life forevermore_

_Together wing to wing and oar to oar._

_\-- Robert Frost_

Everyone stared at the Doctor, speechless. After a moment of stunned silence, the five humans all started talking at once.

“What are you doing out of bed when you’ve been in a coma for the past three days?!” Dr. Franklin asked exasperatedly.

“I’m sorry; I asked him to wait a bit, but he insisted,” Rose said, rubbing her temple.

“She introduced herself as Mallory Bleddyn,” Sheridan explained with a puzzled frown.

“Well, I suppose that explains the animosity between you two. She’s not even a PsiCop, is she?” Ivanova asked, staring at the ginger telepath.

“What did you tell him?” the PsiCop growled as she stepped towards Rose. The Doctor stepped between them, jaw clenched. He glanced over her shoulder at the other humans who were still babbling. Impatiently, he brought his fingers to his mouth and released a shrill whistle, bringing everyone’s attention back to him.

“Right, in order: I needed some questions answered, and the only way to get those answers was to come out here.” He opened his mouth, frowned, and turned to Rose. “‘Mallory Bleddyn’, really?” She shrugged, still rubbing her head.

“Mickey had the idea to make me an alias with a proper ID before I left. I wanted somethin’ to remind me of who I am and who and what I was tryin’ to get back to.”

“And out of all the name combinations that exist, you went with a rough translation of ‘Bad Wolf’?” he asked, trying and failing to suppress a grin.

“Shut up,” she said jokingly, returning his beaming smile. “You’re confusing your audience, Doctor.” He whipped his head around, eyes wide as he remembered he and Rose weren’t alone.

“Oh, right. Anyway, this is Rose Tyler,” he told them while gesturing towards her. Rose waved. “Not Mallory Bleddyn. No, she’s not technically a PsiCop, and she told me,” he glared at the PsiCop in front of him, “that PsiCorps held her prisoner for the past three years, tried to gain access to her thoughts and memories, and drugged her ever since one of the people they’ve been experimenting on escaped last year.” The telepath glared at him and Rose. “So, that’s one out of three questions you’ve answered. Any luck on getting the others anytime soon?”

* * * * * *

Michael Garibaldi strolled slowly towards Medlab, taking a moment to conceal his discomfort. He was not looking forward to being in the same room as the Doctor and PsiCorps. The alien got on his nerves far too easily so Garibaldi’d be glad to see the back of him one way or another. PsiCorps though . . . . He didn’t trust telepaths to begin with, didn’t like how they got in his head without his knowledge or permission, how they knew things that were private and should have stayed that way. Besides that, PsiCorps, especially PsiCops, had a tendency to look down on non-telepaths, as if mundanes were subhuman or barely worth the space.

Still, it wasn’t like Garibaldi could stay away. Franklin had called to inform him that the Doctor was awake and that the two PsiCops were already in Medlab along with Ivanova and the Captain. Garibaldi’s presence was needed as well.

Garibaldi stopped outside of Medlab, taking a moment to make sure his calm, blank façade was still in place, before moving forward. The scene he was met with made him take pause a second time.

The Doctor was standing without aid, tall and menacing as Garibaldi had suspected he could be if pushed too far. He was busy glaring at the red-headed PsiCop (Leui, Garibaldi’s mind supplied) who was scowling at both the Doctor and the blonde PsiCop standing slightly behind the alien. The second PsiCop’s arms were folded, though she raised an ungloved hand occasionally to rub her temple. Sheridan and Ivanova were watching the first three carefully, and Franklin was staring at the Doctor in annoyance.

“Look,” the blonde PsiCop said, “You might as well give him his kit back, because he’s gonna walk around anyway, and I think most of you’d rather not see him do that in a hospital gown.”

“He’s not going anywhere until I’ve run one last exam,” Franklin blurted out firmly. The Doctor and the blonde looked at Franklin with surprise, but the Chief Medical Officer stood his ground. “I can’t release you until you’ve been cleared, Doctor.” Garibaldi took note of the alien’s sudden hesitance and uneasy glance at the blonde telepath beside him. “Ms. Tyler may be present if you both wish.

Had Garibaldi been in a better mood, he might have chuckled at how quickly the pair clasped each other’s hands. Instead, he stared grimly at the Doctor and Ms. Tyler as they retreated to the Doctor’s recovery room.

“While that is being taken care of,” Franklin said, turning his attention to the others in Medlab, “Captain, if you and Commander Ivanova would kindly escort Ms. Leui out of my Medlab, it would be greatly appreciated.”

“What!?” Leui growled, focusing her ire on Dr. Franklin.

“You are distracting and antagonizing my patient, whom you have no reason to be around, and I would like you to leave,” the human doctor informed her calmly. Leui’s eyes narrowed.

“Very well, I’ll leave then. But I advise against leaving Ms. Bled- _Ms. Tyler_ alone with him for much longer. _He_ might not fall under the Corps’ jurisdiction, but _she_ does.” Her piece said, the PsiCop swept out of Medlab, Sheridan and Ivanova following darkly in her wake. Garibaldi took the opportunity to edge closer to Franklin.

“So, Doc. You gonna tell me what’s up?” Garibaldi asked. His friend sighed, then motioned for him to come along.

“The woman in there with the Doctor is Rose Tyler. She used the alias Mallory Bleddyn for some reason when PsiCorps found her. She’s not a PsiCop, and she alleges that the Corps has been giving her Sleepers for a year,” Franklin said quietly. Garibaldi winced.

“And I take it _he_ wasn’t too happy to hear about that,” he said, nodding in the Doctor’s direction.

“He was pissed,” Franklin said mildly. “Leui’s probably lucky that administering the drugs wasn’t her decision, if Ms. Tyler was telling the truth. You coming in to observe?” Garibaldi nodded and the pair stepped into the room, only to find Rose and the Doctor locked in a tender embrace. Franklin exchanged a look with Garibaldi that bordered somewhere between annoyance and amusement before clearing his throat.

The pair jumped apart and stared at Dr. Franklin and Garibaldi; his eyes wide and hers narrowed. “Mr. Garibaldi!” the Doctor exclaimed, pasting on a quick grin. “Mr. Garibaldi, this is Rose. Rose, this is —.”

“We’ve spoken,” Rose interrupted, shooting the alien a fond smile.

“Oh,” the Doctor said, deflating slightly. Garibaldi folded his arms across his chest and leaned back against the wall by the doorway.

“At the moment, Mr. Garibaldi is only here to observe,” Franklin explained as he pulled out his scanner. The Doctor clenched his jaw.

“And will re-arrest me after you’ve given me the green light?” he asked, standing stiffly.

“That’s the plan,” Garibaldi said. “There is that little matter of you breaking onto the station, plus destruction of station property, resisting arrest, and assault of station personnel, not to mention a few other things.” The Doctor rolled his eyes and massaged the bridge of his nose.

“I already told you,” he said slowly, “I cannot stay here, not without causing irreparable harm to the multiverse. I’ve said I’ll find a way to make up for wrecking the shower and I am truly sorry about knocking out my guards, but the longer I stay, the more likely it is that there will be damage I won’t be able to contain and/or fix.” Dr. Franklin stared at the Doctor with a small half smile that betrayed his confusion and concern.

“But . . . you’re talking like you think other universes exist,” Franklin said, his gaze flicking from the alien to Garibaldi. The Doctor stared at Franklin unblinkingly, raising a single imperious eyebrow.

“While travel between parallel worlds is incredibly dangerous and difficult these days, other universes do exist, and it is theoretically possible to travel from one to another. Problem is, there’s only one person capable of monitoring the amount of damage caused by dimensional travel, and my ability to fix said damage is greatly diminished,” said the Doctor. Beside him, Rose stared at the floor and gently took hold of his hand. Garibaldi saw that both of them clutched at each other tightly after a moment.

“So, you’re telling me that you two are from a different universe and you somehow managed to get to this one and now you need to get back?” Garibaldi asked blandly. Only the tension in his frame revealed his anger and frustration. “That’s a bit convenient.”

“Please, I know it’s difficult to believe, but we are telling the truth,” Rose interjected. “We are from a parallel world, and all we want to do is get back to our original universe and repair whatever damage we did by coming here in the first place.” Garibaldi slowly shook his head in amazed disbelief.

“You two are nuts,” he said. “Even if you are telling the truth I can’t just let you go. Earth Force is in the middle of pressing numerous charges against you, not to mention what the aliens will do once they find out you’ve accessed and downloaded every piece of information that was ever entered into Babylon 5’s computer. And as for you, Ms. Tyler, as much as even thinking about siding with PsiCorps makes me want to take a long, disinfecting shower, there’s not much I can do about getting you away from them. Legally, my hands are tied.” At his words, Rose paled and leaned unsteadily against the Doctor’s bed.

“Rose?!” the Doctor exclaimed. He turned to her, cupped her cheek with his free hand, and peered at her frantically. “Rose, listen to me: I won’t let it happen. They won’t get you; I just got you back. It’ll be alright, love, I promise. They won’t separate us again.”

“You might not have much choice there, Doctor,” Garibaldi cautioned, shifting from one foot to the other uncomfortably. “PsiCorps doesn’t like losing their toys, and they fight like hell to keep them.” The Doctor grew very, very still before slowly turning around.

“Let me explain something, Mr. Garibaldi,” he said softly. “As things stand now, PsiCorps has maybe, _maybe_ , ten years left to their name, most likely less if certain people have their way. If they take Rose with the intention of continuing their barbaric treatment of her, there won’t be anything left of PsiCorps within one week.” Garibaldi barely resisted flinching under the Doctor’s cold, dark glare. Again, the Security Chief saw the tightly leashed-in rage, the danger he had sensed in the alien all along that, up until now, had never been focused on him.

“Don’t,” Rose said, gently pulling at the Doctor’s arm and turning him around to face her. “Doctor, don’t do that, not for me.” Garibaldi observed the tension in the alien’s shoulders slowly seep away and started to relax tentatively as well.

“Rose Tyler,” the Doctor murmured. “Still saving me from myself?”

“Someone’s got to do it,” she said, giving him a small, sad smile. “Lord knows, you’re rubbish at it. Savin’ a parallel Earth from Cybermen is one thing. If you think PsiCorps is still going to be around for the better part of the next decade then you probably shouldn’t be dismantlin’ it, yeah?” The Doctor shook his head and nestled his face in the crook of her neck with an emphatic exhale.

“I doubt I can handle being separated from you again, Rose,” Garibaldi heard him sigh. “Last time very nearly killed me.” Rose paled again and nudged his shoulder.

“You are explaining that when we get home, mister,” she said firmly. Her eyes narrowed in sudden thought. “And then you’re explainin’ why we left Jack behind at the Game Station, and none of that rubbish about him rebuildin’ the Earth an’ letting me think he was dead.” Garibaldi bit back a smirk as the Doctor froze.

“Not that this hasn’t been entertaining,” Dr. Franklin spoke up, “but based on these scans, you’re free to return to Mr. Garibaldi’s custody, Doctor.” The human doctor stared down at the readings with quiet amazement. “Your biology is absolutely incredible.” The Doctor raised his head and gave Dr. Franklin a small smile over his shoulder.

“Time Lord. Centuries of genetic manipulation made for a very hardy species,” he said.

“Except for when it came to mental health, apparently,” Rose snarked. The Doctor gave her a wounded pout.

“You try being well adjusted when your entire society is drenched with propaganda about being the most superior species in the universe and when your culture’s main founder was a genocidal maniac. I think I turned out pretty well, considering,” he said with a sniff. Rose rolled her eyes at him and smirked.

“Yeah, well, ‘well-adjusted’ or not, you’ll still have to come with me and we’ll find some place to keep you until your trial.”

“Don’t suppose I’ll get my clothes back before then?” the Doctor grumbled.

“I’ll see what I can do,” Garibaldi told him. The Doctor grimaced, but began striding to the door, Rose’s hand still in his grasp.

“Sorry,” the Security Chief said, holding up his own hand, “but Ms. Tyler can’t come with you to your cell.” The Doctor started to puff up in anger and opened his mouth, but paused, abruptly looking past the doorway next to Garibaldi.

“Actually, Mr. Garibaldi,” a woman’s accented voice spoke up authoritatively. “I believe you’ll find that the Doctor won’t be able to go to his cell either.” With a wince, Michael Garibaldi turned around to properly address the speaker behind him.

“Ambassador Delenn,” Garibaldi said, giving a respectful nod to the striking representative of the Minbari.

* * * * * *

Rose was quietly impressed with the poised woman standing in the doorway. The ambassador remained firm and rational while Mr. Garibaldi argued with her, allowing some passion and fervor into her voice but not succumbing to anger. And never once did she waver from her claim that the Doctor and his wife (and if that was challenged, Rose would just have to dig out one of the marriage licenses they had accidently racked up over their travels — each one laughed at as a mishap but saved away, all the same) were honoured guests of hers, and, therefore, had access to the same diplomatic immunity she had. The woman was an incredible bluff for someone whose culture was normally averse to lying.

“If they are your guests then why weren’t we informed when he first arrived?” Garibaldi asked. “Why didn’t he tell us what he was here for? And if Ms. Tyler is his wife, why is she with PsiCorps?”

“His arrival was as much a surprise to me as it was to you, Mr. Garibaldi,” Delenn explained. “I do not believe he often informs others of his intended destinations, and I have rarely seen him go through what could be called official channels. I, myself, was only notified of his presence a few days ago, by which time he was already in the care of Dr. Franklin.

“Since then, I have put forward several requests to both Minbar and to Earth. I have arranged a transfer of credits to pay for the damages he has caused and received permission to take him into my custody during the duration of his stay on Babylon 5. As for Ms. Tyler, I believe they could give a much better clarification than I could.” Garibaldi scrutinized the Doctor, who had sidled over to the other side of the doorway while the ambassador was talking and was now staring at her calculatingly. Rose caught him stealing a glance at her before he turned his attention to the Security Chief.

“Rose . . . hasn’t always been telepathic,” he said reluctantly. “In fact, it wasn’t until she did something incredibly dangerous and foolhardy to save my life that her Psi abilities began to manifest. She never would have had them otherwise,” the Doctor explained with a small, sad smile. “Once we discovered what had happened, I began teaching her how to shield herself. Our life isn’t always safe, and I wanted to be sure she could defend herself if the situation ever came up and I wasn’t there to help her.” He paused and regarded Rose mournfully.

“We were separated a few years ago, with no way to reach each other save for a single message,” Rose said quietly. “I did my best, learned how to live on my own, but then PsiCorps found me.” She clenched her jaw for a moment before continuing. “Well, I knew I couldn’t let them know about the Doctor and me, so I lied and did my best to distract them from where I came from and kept lookin’ for ways to escape. Was almost startin’ to lose hope when you lot told me he was here, on Babylon 5.”

“In our last message, I had convinced myself she would be safe,” the Doctor spoke up. “Devastated, but safe. When I heard she had been taken by PsiCorps . . . .” He closed his eyes and grimaced. “As happy as I was to have a chance to reunite with her, I was terrified. I’ve heard the horror stories about them. I needed to get her away from them and convince them to stay away, and I was hoped someone here’d be willing and able to help,” he finished with a side-eyed glance at Ambassador Delenn.

“They would have asylum on Minbar,” she offered. Garibaldi grit his teeth and gave the Doctor a dark glare.

“That wasn’t the story you told me earlier,” he bit out. The Doctor merely rolled his eyes.

“Yeah, well, you were never going to accept what we told you before, and that was close enough to the complete truth to be somewhat believable.”

“Or it might have been if you hadn’t been lying and wasting my time ever since we met,” Garibaldi growled.

“Regardless, Mr. Garibaldi,” Ambassador Delenn interrupted, “I do have the proper authorization to take the Doctor and Ms. Tyler with me. If it would set your mind at ease, I will show that authorization to you and to Captain Sheridan.” Garibaldi clenched his jaw but gave her a reluctant nod before leaving the room. To Rose’s right, Dr. Franklin shuffled awkwardly.

“Well, I suppose I should get back to work,” he said, glancing from Delenn, to Rose, to the Doctor. “And, if I don’t get a chance to say goodbye later,” Franklin extended a hand to the Doctor, who shook it with a beaming grin. “Doctor, it’s been an experience.”

“Take care of yourself, Doctor,” the Doctor said, to which Dr. Franklin gave him a wry smirk. After acknowledging both Delenn and Rose, he left the room as well. Then Delenn, with a single look over her shoulder, stepped fully into the room, her green dress rustling softly as she moved. “Ambassador Delenn,” the Doctor said with a short, respectful bow which Rose copied.

“Doctor,” the Minbari said with a smile, returning their bows. “Ms. Tyler.”

“I don’t want to sound like I don’t appreciate what you’re doing for us,” he said hesitantly, fidgeting slightly. “Because I do, I really, really do, but I can’t help but wonder why you’re going to all this trouble, especially stretching the truth for us when we don’t —.” Delenn held up a hand, halting his ramble mid-sentence.

“I do this at the behest of an old friend and mutual acquaintance. He asked me to help you, as we agreed it would attract too much attention and suspicion if he were to be seen doing this himself.”

“Who is this friend?” the Doctor asked, frowning in thought. “I’ve only been here a few days, most of them unconscious. And Rose might’ve been here longer but I doubt she made a lot of friends where she was.” He froze and turned to Rose. “Sorry, that was —.”

“A bit, yeah,” she said, biting back a smile. “But you are right. Kind of hard to make friends when you’re either bein’ interrogated or sittin’ in solitary. But you said acquaintance,” Rose continued, turning to Delenn. “So, it’s someone one of us has met and talked with.”

“Yes,” Delenn said. “He told me he spoke with you, Doctor. In a dream.” The spark of realization brightened the Doctor’s face before vanishing in a wrinkled grimace.

“Oh,” he said. “Him.”

“Doctor?” Rose asked, her own brow wrinkled in confusion and concern.

“The friend Ambassador Delenn mentioned,” he explained. “When I was in the healing coma, he entered my dreams.” His lips tightened in distaste. “Bit rude, doing that without permission. We had a bit of a talk. I’d have come out of the coma sooner otherwise. He had a lot to discuss for someone who didn’t seem like a chatter-box.”

“He is just as vague in person,” Delenn said, “though most Vorlons are.” The two gaped at her in astonishment.

“No,” the Doctor protested faintly, sharing a look with Rose before turning back to the Minbari. “Ambassador Kosh, really?”

“Yeah, him coming to demand your release would have turned a few heads,” Rose said with a grin that was returned by the Doctor.

“His interest in you would have captured the attention of many, and not all would have what one could call benevolent intentions for you,” Delenn warned. “There are dark forces on the move again in this galaxy, Doctor, though they do not yet move openly. Your continued presence here could tip the current balance in a way we cannot foresee, and we are not yet ready to fight.” She paused and studied him for a moment. “I do not doubt that you could help us, even shorten the war that is to come, but this is not your war to fight, and trying to keep you here to help us would make us little better than those we seek to defeat. I shall see to your release, and the return of your possessions, and, if you have no objections, I will walk with you both to your ship, where you may depart in your own time.” She glanced over her shoulder again, where the Doctor could see Garibaldi and the Captain re-entering Medlab. “I will talk with them. It should not take too long for them to come over to my way of thinking.” She swept out of the room, intercepting the two humans to Rose and the Doctor’s amusement.

“A lot of spirit in a small package,” the Doctor said with an admiring smile. Rose’s eyebrow quirked upwards and she cuffed him not too lightly on the shoulder.

“What was that for?” he asked as he rubbed his arm, his brown eyes wide in wounded surprise and lower lip in a trembling pout. Rose pretended immunity.

“One,” she said, holding up a finger, “she’s about my height, so not that small, yeah? Two,” — she held up a second finger — “think about what you said for a minute.” She watched his gaze flicker around as he thought and saw him wince a moment later.

“Sorry,” he apologized. “Bad phrase?”

“Just a bit, yes,” she told him, leaning into him and slipping an arm through his. They stood comfortably in silence, each taking relish in the other’s company. After a while, Rose shifted and rested her head on his shoulder. “I’ve seen pictures of her, but none of them were recent.”

The Doctor looked at her and followed her gaze to see the Minbari Ambassador speaking with the Captain. He took note of the woman’s long brown hair, small bone crest, and human complexion. “She’s half-human now,” he said with a sigh. “I’ve no idea how she managed it, but her own people are none too happy with her for doing it. She’s going to have a few rough years ahead of her.” He stared at her and the Captain, saw how they interacted, the careful, curious glances they traded, caught a glimpse of something twining together. The Doctor blinked once and grinned. “Then again, perhaps she’ll have some happiness, for a while, anyway.”

_* * * * * *_

In the end, it took a few hours for Sheridan to verify Delenn’s request, return the Doctor’s clothes and belongings, and quietly arrange Rose Tyler’s release from PsiCorps. That beautiful little coup was mostly down to the Doctor giving Dr. Franklin some subtle hints to scan Rose, and to Dr. Franklin remarking loudly in Leui’s hearing that Rose was emphatically not human biologically speaking. The beauty of it was, Sheridan hadn’t even needed to step in; the PsiCop had backed off on her own.

That suited him just fine. The longer PsiCorps and the Clark administration thought he was sympathetic to them (or, at least, had no reason to be suspicious of him) and were unaware of General Hague’s investigations against them, the better. He had noticed, however, that Stephen had neglected to mention that Rose’s scan showed that she had been human at one point and was now some human/alien hybrid. He thought of Ambassador Delenn and decided not to comment.

“Blue? Really?” he heard the Doctor’s companion say. He turned his head and saw the alien shrugging into a blue pinstriped suit jacket while Rose looked on pensively beside him.

The Doctor was silent for a moment, slowly buttoning two buttons on the jacket before answering. “It felt appropriate,” he said finally, giving Rose a haunted look that Sheridan had seen many times before in the mirror, especially right after Anna’s death.

“It looks good on you,” she said softly, running a hand down his shoulder to his wrist. “Mind, you also look like you haven’t been eating.” The Doctor gave a rueful chuckle and looked down.

“What do you say to a picnic then? Once we get back and let Donna and Jenny know that I haven’t run off on them,” he asked, grinning at her. A grin that morphed into a wince. “Again.” Sheridan thought Rose looked as though she was biting back a laugh, but she still nodded.

“Actually,” the Doctor continued, cheeks reddening, “Sarah Jane and Jack will probably try to throw a party once they hear you’re back.” Rose’s giggles filled their corner of the room.

“Well, it’ll give me a chance to catch up with them, at least,” she said between laughs. “And to meet your new companions. Donna and Jenny?” The Doctor’s blush deepened.

“Donna’s . . . alright once you get to know her, but she can be just as terrifying as your mum.” Rose studied his face.

“She slapped you, didn’t she.”

“Twice. On the same day, the day we met, actually.” He paused, reaching out to cup Rose’s cheek. “The day you and I said good-bye.” She held his hand to her cheek.

“I told you I loved you,” Sheridan heard her murmur.

“I got cut off at the end,” the Doctor said, eyes watery. “Rose Tyler. I love you, with both of my hearts. For as long as you want, you have a home with me. In the TARDIS.”

“As it should be,” she said with a faint smile.

“Exactly,” he said, smiling back.

The Station shuddered without warning, sending everyone staggering and causing the lights to flicker. Sheridan whipped up his hand and activated his comm badge. “Sheridan to C&C. Status Report.”

“Unclear, Captain,” Ivanova answered. “We are not under attack, but we’re picking up some unusual tachyon emissions in our immediate vicinity.”

“Think we’ve outstayed our welcome, Doctor?” Rose asked

“Yeah, sounds like we’re just about to,” the Doctor said, donning the long, brown coat. “Sooner we’re in the TARDIS, the sooner we can leave and patch up that hole in the universe before anything else slips through. Or before Babylon 5 is ripped to shreds.” Sheridan grimaced.

“Ivanova, how are the transport tubes, say from Medlab to Brown Sector?”

“Fine for now, Captain,” his second-in-command replied. “They might not stay that way if we get shaken again. How is everyone down there?” He glanced around.

“Alright, just a little startled. You?”

“Just peachy, sir. We’re receiving reports from around the Station: some minor injuries and damage, a lot of panicking. Security’s getting pretty stretched out.”

“Thank you. Keep me posted. Sheridan out.” He disconnected and walked over to Rose and the Doctor. “If we get you to your ship, you’ll be able to fix whatever it was you’ve been warning us about since you got here? Re-establish the ‘stability of our Universe’?” The Doctor nodded, digging through the pockets of his brown coat.

“Aha!” the alien exclaimed, his hand emerging from the depths of his pocket with a metal stick in his clutches. “Here it is! Rose, you hold on to this one; I have a spare in my jacket pocket. Now, let’s get going, shall we?” He pulled an about face and walked out the door, Rose right beside him. Sheridan caught Garibaldi’s eye and they followed the strange pair.

It took them several minutes to get to the right level of Downbelow, with two more shudders rumbling through Babylon 5. The four made their way through the panicking throngs of people, ultimately stopping in a grungy corridor made almost pitch black with the poor lighting. “Your ship is here?” Garibaldi asked, incredulous.

“Yep,” the Doctor said with a proud beam, patting a blue shed that Sheridan had somehow missed seeing before.

“What the hell?”

“Told you,” Rose said with a smile at Garibaldi’s wide-eyes and open mouth. Sheridan quickly closed his own, but still caught her grinning at him. The Doctor, meanwhile, was _cooing_ at the big blue box.

“Hello, sweetheart. Sorry it took me so long to get back to you, but it’s worked out.” He gave Rose a small smile as she removed a small old-fashioned key from around her neck. Sheridan hadn’t noticed that before either. The Doctor stepped aside with a wave of his hand, allowing Rose to do the honours. The key slid into the lock and the door opened.

“Hello, love,” Rose said, her face shining. “Missed you too.” Waving at Garibaldi and Sheridan, she stepped into the box. Around her, Sheridan could make out an entire room, and could feel his jaw drop open again.

“Dimensionally transcendent,” the Doctor said, as if that was an explanation. Perhaps it was. “My people were quite gifted when it came to technology. This was just one of the things we perfected. Comes in handy when you don’t know what to pack.” He stuffed his hands in his pockets, and Sheridan remembered the pencil and paper that had come from nowhere. “Anyway, it truly was lovely meeting you all, sorry for all the trouble. And thank you.” He glanced inside the box, expression softening. “Something good came out of all this, at least.”

“Doctor,” Sheridan said, startling the alien.

“Oh, right, Universe to fix, on it!” He held out a hand which Sheridan took hesitantly. “Goodbye, Captain! Thanks for the hospitality and the help,” the Doctor said, shaking Sheridan’s hand vigourously before releasing him and turning to Garibaldi. “Mr. Garibaldi.” The Security Chief stared at him, stony-faced, and the alien faltered.

“Guess I was wrong, then,” Garibaldi said, holding out his own hand. The Doctor beamed and shook the offered hand with enthusiasm. “So long, Doc. And good luck.”

The Doctor nodded and gave a casual salute. He stepped into the box and started to close the door. “Wait. Bugs Bunny?” he asked, poking his head outside.

“No,” Garibaldi said with an amused scoff. “Daffy Duck.”

“Ah,” the alien said, closing the door. Sheridan and Garibaldi watched in amazed silence as a grinding noise filled the air and the blue box faded from existence, taking Rose Tyler and the Doctor with it.

“‘Daffy Duck’?” Sheridan asked as they walked back to the transport tube.

“Second favorite thing in the Universe,” Garibaldi confirmed.

_* * * * * *_

“So how did you get to that Universe, Doctor?” Rose asked while he set the coordinates for Donna’s house.

“Before I was attacked, I asked the TARDIS that,” he said, taking extra care with his actions. He had no wish to be anything more than a few minutes off. “She said it was as if something pulled her through a hole that was already there.” The Doctor looked up from his work. “Then, when I was talking with Ambassador Kosh in my dreams, he mentioned that this wasn’t the first time someone from our Universe had fallen into theirs.” He frowned. “About 1,000 years ago from his perspective, something appeared in the middle of their war. Some chaotic instrument of death. His people had at first assumed it had been engineered by their enemy, but the Shadows were the ones that destroyed it.”

“Any idea what it was?” He grimaced.

“Kosh was there when it happened; he showed me the memory.”

“Well?” Rose asked.

“It was Dalek Caan,” he admitted, wincing. Rose stared at him in shock and sank into the patchy pilot seat.

“How?” He left the console and sat beside her.

“He and the rest of the Cult of Skaro escaped from Canary Wharf,” he explained. “I met up with them again a few years ago in 1930 Manhattan under the Empire State Building. The other three were destroyed, but Caan used an Emergency Temporal Shift to get away. My guess is that when he shifted he accidently tore a hole in the Universe and fell through into the one we just left.”

“So, that’s really it then?” she asked quietly.

“I hope so,” he said. “But then, it seems every time I’ve said that before another bunch of them crawled out of the woodwork.”

“The unholy spawn of cockroaches and the Energizer Bunny,” Rose muttered. The Doctor let out a surprised laugh.

“They are at that, aren’t they?” he said. “Throw in a Timex and that part of them is described to a T.” Rose looked at him in confusion. “Timex? ‘Takes a licking and keeps on ticking’?” She chuckled and slowly sobered.

“If we hadn’t had to leave,” she began, “would you have offered to help with their war?” He stared off into the middle distance, thinking of the vague glimpses of timelines he had managed to see, of the information he had been given, of his own feelings.

“If we had been stuck there, yes,” he said finally. “But only then. From what I could see, the ‘forces of Light’ and ‘forces of Darkness’ Delenn mentioned are fighting more along ideologies of Order and Chaos, and they use the younger species as pawns.” He shuddered. “I had enough of that when the Black and White Guardians were barging into my life. I’d no intention of getting involved in something like that again. Besides,” he said, brightening, “I don’t think the humans will appreciate being pawns. They might just upset the entire game.”

“You’re sure of that are you?” she asked with a teasing grin. He grinned and winked before jumping to his feet and back to the console.

“I might have seen something big in their futures,” he said. “I may not be as good at it as I was in my eighth life, but I can still do it on occasion.” He looked up. “Ready?”

“Ready,” Rose confirmed with a grin, rising to her feet and joining him at the console. He smiled at her and pulled the final lever in the sequence.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And that wraps up this fic! Thank you to everyone who decided to give this a chance and everyone who read this before on Teaspoon and came back to re-read! I won't promise anything more soon (because I am nowhere near finished with anything else), but I do have more stories that I hope to write and share with you!
> 
> Have a wonderful day!


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